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f 'i ,v BROTHeRS. 

ii.lLMNG TO THE DECLARATION OI- I N DEPENDENC E — " SITTING IN THE HIGH-BACKED EASY- 
CHAIR WHILE THOMAS JEFFERSON READ HIS DRAFT OF THAT WONDERFUL PAPER." 



THE TRUE STORY 



OF 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



THE AMERICAN STATESMAN 



ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS 

AUTHOR OF "historic BOYS," " THE CENTURY BOOK FOR YOUNG AMERICANS,'' " THE TRUE STORY OF 

GEORGE WASHINGTON," "a SON OF THE REVOLUTION," " THE TRUE STORY OF THE 

UNITED STATES," "a BOY OF THE FIRST EMPIRE," AND MANY OTHERS 



ILLUSTRATED BY VICTOR A. SEARLES 



BOSTON 



LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPAN.^ 

181898 



2nd COPY. 
1898, 



f/'ster of C09I' 



i^^ 



^\ 



Twnr.opiFS RFnnwpn. 



6111 

Copyright, 1898, 

BY 

LoTHROP Publishing Company. 



All rights reserved. 



t 



301- 



fS-^'^1 



C. J. PETERS k SON. TYPOGRAPHERS, BOSTON 



PREFACE. 



Statesman, philanthropist, patriot, inventor, author, printer, humorist, 
business-man, helper, friend, the lover of children, of humanity and the world 
— all these was Benjamin Franklin, most remarkable of Americans. 

As one who had a hand in shaping the destinies and securing the indepen- 
dence of his native land, by word and pen, by brain and hand, it is most fitting 
that the story of his life should be re-told for young Americans in this series 
of Children's Lives of Great Men, in which Washington and Lincoln, Columbus 
and Grant have place. 

Benjamin Franklin belongs to the world ; but especially does he belong to 
America. As the nations honored him while living, so the republic glorifies 
him when dead, and enshrines him in the choicest of its niches — the one which 
is regarded as the loftiest — • the hearts of the common people. 

Among the learned men of the world none is more famous than he ; among 
the patriots of the world none holds a higher place ; among Americans none is 
worthier remembrance, veneration, or imitation. 

For the boys and girls of America I have tried to tell once more Franklin's 
remarkable story ; hoping that, as they read anew of his struggles, his successes, 
and his greatness, they may find, perhaps, new things to honor and new traits 
to emulate in that shrewd, kindly, big-brained, great-hearted, noble old man, of 
whom the French poet said : — 

" He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven and the sceptre from tyrants." 

E. S. B. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

WHY THE candle-maker's SON PEDDLED BALLADS . . . . II 

CHAPTER n. 

HOW THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES ..... 29 

CHAPTER HI. 

HOW THE PRINTER LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD PROVERB . . 4/ 

CHAPTER IV. 

HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER ..... 64 

CHAPTER V. 

HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME .... 83 

CHAPTER VI. 

HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN . . . . . , . 103 

CHAPTER VH. 

HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND . . . . 1 20 

CHAPTER Vni. 

HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS . . . . . . • 137 

CHAPTER IX. 

HOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH . . . . . I 5^ 

CHAPTER X. 

HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME . . . I/- 

7 



g CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XI. 

HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA . . . . 1 94 

CHAPTER Xn. 

HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME . . . . 211 



CHAPTER Xin. 

THE OLD philosopher's ONLY REGRET 



228 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Franklin listening to the Declaration of Independence 
The birthplace of Franklin ..... 
In the doorway of the Old South Church . 
Site of Franklin's birthplace on Milk Street, Boston 

Ben 

The other boy ....... 

" Let's build our wharf with these," said Ben 

'• A pioneer in improvements " . 

The site of Franklin's boyhood home as it looks to-day 

Ben Franklin peddling his own ballads in Boston-town 

" He read everything he could get hold of 

Ben Franklin, apprentice ....... 

The young " vegetarian "....... 

" He slipped the paper under the printing-house door" 
Tracking a runaway apprentice in Ben Franklin's day 
" He was soon on blue water, bound for New York and a living 
Ben wishes to pay for his passage ..... 

" The boy handed him out three big puffy rolls " 

" A young girl of about his own age was ^standing in the doorway " 

" Young Mr. Franklin " and the Governor 

Where Franklin learned his trade 

William Penn ..... 

" Poor Ben had been bitterly fooled " 

" He married Deborah Read " . 

" I sometimes brought home the paper . , 

" He was the leading newspaper publisher in America" 

Title-page and specimen page from " Poor Richard's Almanac 

The Philadelphia library of to-day ..... 

Monument to Franklin's parents, in Boston 

" You can have ten," said the Governor of New York . 

Franklin standing guard as a private soldier 

General Braddock ........ 

Where Fort Duquesne stood in Franklin's day . 

The Pennsylvania Hospital, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1752 

*' He touched his knuckle to the hanging key " . 

Where Franklin flew the kite ...... 

The University of Pennsylvania, founded by Benjamin Franklin 



through the streets 



wheelbarrow 



Fn 



ontispiece. 
Page 12 
13 
15 
16 
16 
18 
21 
24 
27 

30 
32 
34 
35 
39 
41 
43 
47 
51 
55 
57 
60 
61 
66 
69 
72 
76 
81 
86 
91 
93 
97 
100 
105 
109 
1 12 
114 



lO 



LIST OF ILLUSTRAriONS. 



Independence to the Presi 



Cambridjre 



Franklin and the lightning Page 

Faneiiil Hall, Boston 

"They spun their own wool, and did without many things they needed " . . . 

" No power, howsoever great, can force men to change their opinions," said Franklin, 

Edmund Burke, the friend of America, who spoke and argued the cause of the colo- 
nies in Parliament ......... 

'•He could never get beyond the prime minister, the king's head man ' 

Where the Boston massacre occurred 

" Obstinate King George grew more obstinate " 

Franklin and Wedderburn ...... 

'"There's a fable for you,' he said" .... 

Independence Hall, Philadelphia .... 

Franklin and the committee presenting the Declaration of 
dent of Congress ...... 

" He wrote Mr. Strahan a famous letter" . 

Washington and Franklin conferring at the Craigie House 

The Liberty Bell, which Franklin set a-ringing . 

Some of Franklin's fellow-workers for liberty 

Franklin signs the Declaration . 

The little lame Frenchman . 

The Marquis de Lafayette . 

The Hotel de Valentinais, at Passy 

The Treaty of Alliance 

John Paul Jones 

The messenger from America 

General Burgoyne 

Signing the treaty of peace 

In the Queen's litter . 

The return of Franklin 

" The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat " 

Near Franklin's old home . 

Franklin's pew in Christ Church 

A glimpse of the Doctor 

In Independence Hall 

The inkstand used in signing the Constitution . 

Washington visits Franklin at his home in Philadelphia 

Franklin and certain of his patriot associates 

The signers of the Constitution ..... 

Franklin and the President's chair .... 

The statue of Franklin in his native city 

Franklin and his granddaughter .... 

Franklin's reception-room " Under the big mulberry-tree in his garden " 

The last letter ........ . . 

The grave of Franklin ........ 



i6 
i\ 

26 
129 



THE TRUE STORY OF 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 

THE AMERICAN STATESMAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

WHY THE candle-maker's SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 



^np^HIS is the story of Benjamin Franklin, most remark- 
I able of Americans. How remarkable a man he was 
I shall try to tell you. What he did for his country, 
for you and for me, is a tale worth the telling and the hear- 
ing. For his story is fully as remarkable as was he himself. 
As wise as Solomon, as simple as JEsop, as witty as Mark 
Twain, as inventive as Edison, as gentle as a lamb, as 
bold as a lion, he tried his hand at everything, and failed at 
nothing./ Sixty of his eighty-five years of life were spent 
for the good of his countrymen. He built America; for 
what our republic is to-day is largely due to the prudence, 
the forethought, the statesmanship, the enterprise, the great- 
ness, the ability, and the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin. 
His story is one that the boys and girls of America should 



12 IVHV THE CANDLE-MAKER'S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 



know by heart, and should all love to hear. And that is 
why I try to tell it. 
Listen to his story. 

On the corner of Milk and Washington Streets, in the 
city of Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, there stands 

a famous church. It is known 
as the Old South Meeting-house. 
Since 172;) it has stood on that 
corner, its gray bricks overgrown 
with ivy, its simple spire a land- 
mark for all Boston, its doors a 
rallying-point for every visitor 
to the historic old town. The 
doors of the plain wooden meet- 
ing-house, to which succeeded this 
brick church which all America 
loves, swung open on the after- 
noon of Sunday, January 17, 1706, to let in a big, well-built, 
pleasant-faced working-man, with a little baby in his arms. 
The big man w\as Josiah Franklin, soap-boiler and candle- 
maker; the little baby was his son Benjamin, who had been 
born that very Sunday morning in the little frame house 
across the way on Milk Street. The baby was brought to 
church to be baptized; and in the records of the Old South 
Church you can still see and read this entry: "Benjamin, 
son of Josiah Franklin and Abiah, his wife." 

To-day, on the site of the little wooden hous^e, opposite 




THE BIRTHPLACE OF FRANKLIN AS IT 
LOOKED ONE HUNDRED YEARS AC.O. 



IVHV THE CANDLE-MAKER 'S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 1 3 



the Old South Church on Milk Street, stands a tall iron 
building full of of- 
fices. And on the 
front of the building, 



beneath a bust of the 
great American, you 
may read the words: 
" Birthplace of Frank- 
Im. 

As I have said, 
his father was a soap- 
and candle-maker. 
He had a family of 
sixteen children, of 
whom Benjamin was 
the youngest son, 
Benjamin's mother 
was a loving, wise, 
and noble woman ; 
his father was a kind- 
hearted, just, and hon- 
orable man. To-day, 
if you stand before 
the gateway of what 
is known as the Old 
Granary Burying-ground in Boston, while beneath you the 
ceaseless trolley-cars whiz through the Subway, — an out- 




IN THE DOORWAY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH. 
Sunday, January 17, 1706. 



14 Jf'^y THE CANDLE-MAKER'S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 

growth of Franklin's wonderful brain, — while above you 
rises the graceful spire of famous Park-street Church, you 
can see, in the centre of that quiet and crowded burial- 
place of governors, patriots, and great men, a tall granite 
obelisk, on which stands out in bold letters the name 
" Franklin." It is the perpetual reminder of Benjamin 
Franklin's affection for his Boston home; for it was placed 
there in 1829 by the citizens of Boston to take the place 
of the crumbling stone reared on that very spot by Ben- 
jamin Franklin to mark the grave of his loved and honored 
father and mother. 

In this strict but happy home Benjamin Franklin grew 
into a healthy, hearty, strong, and sturdy boyhood. While 
he was yet a very small fellow his father removed from the 
little gambrel-roofed house on Milk Street to one not much 
larger on what is now Hanover Street, near to where it is 
crossed by Union Street. There, before the house, swung 
a blue ball about as big as a cocoanut; upon this ball ap- 
peared the name of Benjamin's father, and through all the 
town it was known that Mr. Josiah Franklin carried on 
the business of making soap and candles "at the sign of 
the Blue Ball." 

With a dozen or more boys and girls always at table, the 
little house on Hanover Street w^as a noisy but happy, if 
crowded, home. There is lots of fun in big families if only 
the brothers and sisters "pull together," and are kept well 
in hand by father and mother. This was the case in the 



JFIfV THE CAXDLE-MAKER' S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 1 5 



Franklin home. " It was, indeed, a lowly dwelling we were 
brougiit up in," said Benjamin's younger sister Jane, many 
years after; but we were fed plentifully, made comfortable 
Avith fire and cloth- 
ing, and seldom had 
any contention 



among us. 



All was 




harmony, especially 
between the heads, 
and they were uni- 
versally respected." 
Plenty to eat, 
plenty to do, warm, 
comfortable, con- 
tented, united — that 
should have made a 
pleasant home for 
any boy, should it 
not? Evidently it 
did for Benjamin 
Franklin, even 
though he did grow 
restless and unset 
tied at last, as will most ambitious boys. He long remem- 
bered his happy Boston home, and the good times he had 
there as a boy. He was a wide-awake little fellow, with a 
frank, handsome face, ''bright as a button," ''busy as a bee;'' 



SITE OF franklin's BIRTHPLACE ON MILK STREET, BOSTON, 
AS IT LOOKS TO-DAY. 



1 6 JJ'IIV THE CAXDLE-MAKER' S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 



and, though full of mischief and often getting into scrapes, 
he was the pet and pride of the family, and a friend to all 
the neighborhood. 

People took a good deal of notice of this active, 
earnest little fellow, from Uncle Benjamin in England 
who sent him letters in rhyme, to his boy " crony " next 
door. But sometimes the Boston boys would take ad- 
vantage of little Benjamin, and thus teach him a lesson; 
for Franklin always managed to find a moral in every 
thing. 

One day, when he was about seven years old, there was 
a holiday in Boston. As a holiday present Benjamin was 
given a handful of pennies, and 
started out for a good time, 
feeling as rich as a lord. He 
made a straight line for the toy- 
shop; but, on his way, he met a 
boy blowing a whistle. It was 
shrill and clear, and at once Ben 
concluded that he wished for a 
whistle more than anything else. 
He must have that very whistle 
too; he could not wait to get to 
the store. So he asked the boy 
to sell it, and offered his hand- 
ful of pennies in exchange. The other boy took all he 
could get, of course, and walked away proud of his business 





THE OTHER BOY. 



xa 



WHY THE CANDLE-MAKER'S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 1 7 

shrewdness, while Ben walked the other way equally proud 
of his purchase. 

J Soon he was in the house, whistling with all his might. 
A whistle is a noisy thing in a house ; it is shrill, ear-splrt^- 
tingi_and exasperating; it soon gets to be a nuisance. So 
the Franklin family found it. And when they found, too, 
what Ben had paid for it, they made it very unpleasant 
for the small whistler. They laughed at his bargain-mak- 
ing. "A fine tradesman you are, Ben," they said. "Why, 
you might have bought four whistles at the toy-shop for 
what you have paid for one. Just see how you threw your 
money away; just think what you might have bought with 
it — and a whistle besides;" and other things of the same 
sort — you know how small boys have to suffer. Ben did; 
until at last, so he said as he told the story more than sixty 
years after, " I cried with vexation ; and my reflections gave 
me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure." 

But he had learned a lesson, just as General Grant did, 
you remember, in that famous horse trade when he was a 
boy. For Franklin had learned what it is to make a bad 
bargain, and how little sympathy folks get who do make 
one. He remembered it too. For often in his busy life, 
so he tells us, " When I was tempted to buy some unneces- 
sary thing, I said to myself, ' Don't pay too much for the 
whistle ! ' and so saved my money." 

But he was a wise little fellow, even if he did sometimes 
get sold ; and the boys who were his playmates knew it. 



1 8 ir/fV THE CANDLE-MAKER'S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 

They found him to be a good comrade, — jolly, venture- 
some, full of plans and projects, just the boy to be a leader 
in sports and, sometimes, in pranks. 

One of these pranks got him into trouble. Down, 
towards what is now Boston's crowded and busy water- 
front, there used to be a marsh in Ben Franklin's day. It 
was a fine place to catch minnows at high tide, and Ben 



^?^ 

^>^' 






"let's build our wharf with these," said ben. 



and the other boys used to do a great deal of fishing there. 
But they went there so much that they often trampled the 
low bank into a mud-hole. 

" That ought to be fixed," said Ben to the boys. '* Let's 
build a wharf." 

Now, the Boston folks had just built a fine new pier, 
called Long Wharf. Every Boston boy to-day knows where 
it is. Ben said if they only had stones enough they could 



IVHV THE CANDLE-MAKER'S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 19 

build just as good a "Long Wharf" for their business in 
that minnow marsh. He hunted around, and soon spied, 
near by, a pile of stones, which had been brought there to 
build the cellar of a new house. "Just the thing, boys," 
he said. " Let's build our wharf with these." 

No one thought about what the man might say who 
was building the house. That very night Ben and his boys 
"tackled" that heap of stones, lugged them to the minnow 
marsh, and, working like beavers, soon had a fine fishing- 
wharf. 

Of course this got them into trouble; for the workmen 
made a great fuss, and when Ben was found to be at the 
bottom of it all he was quickly taken to task. 

He took his punishment like a little man; but he argued 
with his father that he ought not to be punished. The 
stones were there ; the boys just had to have a wharf; they 
had built a good one. But his father did not agree with 
him. Ben's excuse was no excuse, he held. " The stones 
were not yours to take, Ben," he said; "and what is not 
honest cannot be truly useful." 

So Ben Franklin learned another lesson, which stayed 
by him all through his eventful life, — that " honesty is the 
best policy." 

This marsh was one of Boston's "water privileges;" for, 
in Franklin's boyhood, Boston was half water, and Ben 
always loved the water. He was a good hand in a boat ; 
he was a strong and fearless swimmer, and could not only 



20 IVIIY THE CANDLE-MAKER' S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 

" give a dare," but take one, as well. Few of his compan- 
ions could beat him on or in the water. 

Have you noticed, in reading these ** Children's Lives of 
Great Men," how all these great men were fine swimmers 
when they were boys? Columbus, you know, once swam 
six miles when he w^as but sixteen; Washington and Lin- 
coln were both strong and tireless swimmers; and Grant 
was the "champion" at the Georgetown ''swimming-hole." 
Franklin, from the time he was twelve to the time he was 
sixty, was as much at home in the water as a duck. 

Well, one of the secrets of being a good swimmer is 
having confidence — to feel that you can do a thing and do 
it well, if you only try. And confidence was what all these 
great men had ; confidence and faith helped them all to 
success. 

Almost the earliest of Franklin's many experiments and 
inventions were connected with swimming. He wished to 
fix up something so that he could swim long and far, and 
he tried two experiments when he was a Boston boy. Once 
he got up a sort of push-board or pallet for his hands, and 
also a broad kind of sandal or swimming-shoe for his feet. 
These worked fairly well; but the best help he found was to 
fly a kite, and fastening the string to his wrist, let the kite 
pull him through the water, while he lay quietly on his back, 
lowering or raising the kite as he wished to go fast or slow. 

Many years after, when he was an old man, he explained 
this kite-swimming to a friend, and said, " I have never. 



WJ^y THE CANDLE-MAKER' S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 2.1 

since that time, practised this singular mode of swimming, 
though I think it not impossible to cross in this manner 
from Dover to Calais. The packet-boat, however," he added 
dryly, " is still preferable." 

But just see what a pioneer in improvements was Ben- 
jamin Franklin ! To-day, professional swimmers try the 




"A PIONEER IN improvements" — FRANKLIN'S EXPERIMENTS IN KITE-TRAVEL. 



same sort of hand-and-foot helps ; and Franklin's kite- 
swimming was but the beginning of the kite-travel which 
so many learned men are now trying to turn to practical 
use. 

Franklin was a good scholar, although he never went 
much to school. In fact, he had to leave school when he 
was ten years old and go to work. But there was a good 
deal of reading and discussing in the humble home of 



22 IVIIV THE CANDLE-iMAKER' S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 

the candle-maker, and Ben himself said that he did not 
remember when he could not read. 

Before he was seven years old he used to correspond 
"in rhyme" with his good Uncle Benjamin, across the sea 
in London ; and the opinion of all his father's friends was, 
so he tells us in his delightful story of his own life, " that 
I should certainly make a good scholar." 

So Josiah the candle-maker started his son Ben off to 
school early. At eight years of age, Ben was in the gram- 
mar school, and stood at the head of his class, was pro- 
moted to higher classes twice within a year, and then sent 
to a "writing-school" to learn writing and arithmetic. 

"I learned fair writing pretty soon," he says; "but I 
failed in arithmetic and made no progress in it." And yet 
he became the greatest philosopher of his day ! Remember 
this, boys and girls, when you struggle over your arithmetic 
sums, and grumble at your mathematical problems. 

But life with a big family in the little house on Union 
Street became a hard struggle for Josiah the candle-maker, 
and his boys and girls were set to work early. 

He had wished Ben to be a good scholar, and had even 
thought of making a preacher of the boy ; but things did 
not go as he wished, and when Ben was but ten years old 
he was taken from school and put to candle-making. 

He did not like the business any better than Ulysses 
Grant liked his father's trade. You remember about that 
in the story of Grant, do you not? 



PFI/V THE CANDLE-MAKER' S SOiV PEDDLED BALLADS. 23 

Ben hated to cut wicks and make moulds and run 
grease ; he hated the touch and the smell, and he grum- 
bled, I imagine, as much as a good-natured boy can grumble. 

" I don't like it, father," he said; " I'd rather go to sea." 

If you recall the story of George Washington, you will 
remember how strong an attraction blue water was in those 
days to all the boys along shore. 

In fact, it ahvays has been; although in these days, 
when the groan of machinery has taken the place of the 
creak of sails, and coal-smoke that of Washington Irving's 
''smacking breeze," much of the poetry and fascination has, 
for boys, gone from a sailor's life. 

Now, one of Josiah Franklin's boys had run away to 
sea, and he did not wish to lose another in that way. So, 
when he saw that Ben really did dislike the trade of a 
candle-maker, and would not keep at it if he found a chance 
to get to sea, Josiah Franklin decided to find some other 
trade for his son. 

After looking up a number of occupations, he finally 
settled upon the trade of a cutler ; that is, a maker of 
knives and edge-tools. 

But, in those days, the fathers of boys who were set to 
learning a trade had to pay a fee for the privilege of learn- 
ing how to work. The cutler's fee was one hundred dollars. 
This was more than Josiah Franklin could afford; and so, 
at length, he decided to make Ben a printer, and apprenticed 
him to the boy's elder brother James. 



24 



JP'I/y THE CANDLE-MAKER' S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 



Brother James had a printing-office at the corner of what 
is now Franklin Avenue and Court Street in Boston; and 

though young Ben, who 
had grown to be twelve 
years old, did not much 
like the idea of workingf 
under his brother, or of 
becoming a printer in- 
stead of a sailor, it was 
better than making can- 
dles. So he went to set- 
ting up type, and became, 
what boys who learn that 
trade have always been 
called,- — it isn't a very 
nice name, — a " printer's 
devil." 

It w^as in the year 1718 
that Benjamin Franklin 
began to learn the print- 
er's trade, and to-day he 
is remembered and hon- 
ored by all the printers 
in America as one of 
the greatest in their great 
and honorable craft. Apprentices in those days had hard 
lines. They were what is called " bound " to their masters 




THE SITE OF FRANKLIN'S BOYHOOD HOME AS IT 
LOOKS TO-DAY. 

{Hanover and Union Streets, Boston.) 



JP'/IV 2WjE CANDLE-MAKER' S SON FEDDLED BALLADS. 25 

until they were twenty-one and ** free." It was almost as 
bad as being a slave; for they had few privileges, and 
but little time of their own, and Ben's master, besides 
being his own brother, was an especially hard man to get 
along with. 

But Ben stood it pretty well for a while. He knew it 
was what most apprentice boys had to expect; and as he 
was something of a philosopher already, he tried to make 
the best of it, and put up with all Brother James's harsh 
treatment as " part of the day's work." 

The day's work meant hard work too. But Ben was 
bright and ambitious, and set himself the task of self-educa- 
tion. He was always a great reader. He had read every- 
thing that came into his father's house, — pretty dry reading, 
too, you boys would think it, — and he read everything that 
came into his brother's shop. 

Besides this, he struck up an acquaintance with a num- 
ber of boys who worked for the Boston booksellers. Book- 
sellers and printers, you know, have a good deal to do with 
each other, and so Ben became quite "chummy" with the 
booksellers' boys. He would get them to lend him books 
from their shelves, and would sit up late at night — some- 
times almost all night — to read the book through and have 
it back at the book-store next morning. This was hardly to 
be expected, was it, from the man who afterwards wrote 
those lines that have sent so many, many boys and girls 
to bed when they were not a bit sleepy, — 



26 JFHY THE CANDLE-MAKER'S SON PEDDLED BALLADS. 

" Early to bed and early to rise 
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." 

And, speaking of verse-making: that was one of Ben 
Franklin's "fads." He wrote verses — they were scarcely 
poetry — from the time he was six or seven years old. 

His brother James knew this, and determined to make 
money out of it. So he set the boy to writing ballads, and 
then, when he had printed them, made him go out on the 
street and sell them. 

Ballad-peddling was quite a trade in those days. The 
so-called poets were ready to write verses on whatever sub- 
ject interested people, and the people were always ready 
to buy. It was like the trade to-day in picture papers, cheap 
magazines, and popular songs. 

So Ben Franklin began to write and peddle ballads on 
the Boston streets. Two of them were very popular. One 
was about a dreadful shipwreck in Boston Harbor; the 
other was all about the capture and hanging of a famous 
pirate. Both of these ballads, so Franklin tells us in his 
autobiography, were "wretched stuff." But they sold well. 

His father thought them "wretched" too, I imagine; for 
when he discovered what young Benjamin was doing he 
objected strongly. He told Ben that a poet's lot was not 
a happy one, and that he had better stick to his trade and 
stop rhyming, for poor poetry was worse than none. Josiah 
Franklin, you see, was a very wise and sensible man. 

So Ben took his father's advice and " stuck to the case," 



[*«> 









1%: 



■V 



1 ; 

t- 

i 















BEN FRANKLIN PEDDLING HIS OWN BALLADS IN BOSTON-TOWN. 



HOW THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBIES. 29 

setting up type and spending all hissparejime in reading 
and improving his mind, thus laying the foundation for that 
wonderful knowledge of what to say and how to say it, that 
made^ him in later years the deepest thinker and bnghtest 
writer of his day. 



C 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 

ITTLE by little the printer boy began to learn his 
value, and to know how much he was really worth 
to his brother James. 

"In a little time," he tells us in his delightfully natural 
way of saying a good thing about himself, '* I made great 
proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to 
my brother." 

But he had to find this out for himself. Brother James 
never told him so ; in fact, Brother James seldom approved, 
and often abused him. 

Ben found out that he could write pretty well, and he 
set himself to studying all the harder after his father had 
put an end to the ballad-peddling business. 

He studied all the time. What little money he had to 
spend — and it was very little — he put into books. He read 
everything he could get hold of; and from what he read 



30 



BO IV THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 



he tried to get some good. For he was a thoughtful fel- 
low, big-boned and big-brained, and he was always learning. 
You remember that he found arithmetic a hard task at 
school. Perhaps his teacher w^as at fault; for arithmetic is 
really easy, if you can only start your train of reasoning 
right. At any rate, Ben thought he was a fail- 
ure in that study, and he set himself the task 

of mastering it. He did so ; 
and after that he successfully 
''tackled" algebra and geom- 
etry. He studied navigation, 
rhetoric, and grammar, and 
recollect ! he did it all by 
himself. That boy of fifteen 
really knew a little of every- 
thinij that could be 
learned from the 
dull, dry books of 
those days, and sim- 
ply because he had 
a good mind, and trained himself to reason out things, and 
to remember them too. 

He was not what is called a ready talker. He knew 
that ; so he set to work to make of himself an easy writer. 
For this purpose he sent his memory to school ; that is, 
he would read a thing, then think it over, write it down in 
his own language, compare it, a week after, with the real 




HE READ EVERYTHING HE COULD GET HOLD OF 



HOW THE BOV-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 3 1 

thing', and find wliere he was wrong in expression or style. 
If he found his wMy of telling things was heavy and dull, 
he would read a story, turn it into verse, and then put it 
back into prose again. That sounds like hard work, does 
it not? But, you see, this boy was ambitious; he was bound 
to make the best of himself. Perhaps, too, he had wdiat all 
of us do not have, — what is called a grenius for learning. 

. O O 

But all this reading and writing and studying took time; 
and when you remember how hard apprentice boys had to 
w^ork in Ben Franklin's day, you may well ask "Why! how 
under the sun could the boy make time to do it all?" 

Well, that is just it! He really did make time. Up 
early in the morning, up late at night, he put every spare 
moment to use. But when even that did not o-ive him 
time enough, ^ — what do you think? he turned vegetarian! 
That is, he gave up eating meat, and lived on bread, fruit, 
rice, and potatoes. He struck a bargain with his brother 
to give him the cost of his board and let him board him- 
self. So he saved both time and money. A slice of 
bread, a handful of raisins, and a glass of water was 
often Ben's only dinner. 

"I presently found," he tells us, "that I could save 
half what my brother paid me as board money. This 
was an additional fund for buying books. But I had 
another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going 
from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there 
alone, and, despatching my light repast, had the rest of the 



32 



ffOJV THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 



time for study, in which I made the greater progress from 
that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension 
which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking." 




PHOTOGRAPHED BY BALDWIN COOLIOGE, 



BEN FRANKLIN, APPRENTICE. 



(Bas-relief bronze tablet on ilie />edes/al d) Grcenougit s statue of Franklin in /rout aj the City Hall, Boston.) 

Did you ever hear of such a boy? Few could stand that 
training ; but Benjamin Franklin was wonderfully strong, 
and this over-study and under-eating did not hurt him. 

So_bright and_clear4ie.aded a boy, strong, willing, and 
ready, must have been a great help in that little printing- 



I/OIF THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 33 

office. Indeed, he was ; though, as I have said, Brother 
James never told him so. 

It would never have done for a master to say a kind 
or appreciative word in those hard days to his over- 
worked apprentice. It was much better, so folks said, to 
" teach boys their place and keep 'em down." So when, 
in August, 1 72 1, James Franklin, printer, started a news- 
paper in Boston, he relied for help upon his young brother 
Ben much more than he would admit. 

He called his newspaper the New England Courant. 
There were very few newspapers in the world then — only 
four in all America, and three of these in Boston. The 
Courant was the third. 

It was published weekly, and it made a great stir in 
Boston, where it soon had as many as a hundred sub- 
scribers ! That was a great many for those days. 

The Courant was, I am afraid, the very first of what 
we call ** sensational newspapers" in America. We have 
a great many now, and good people are still wondering 
whether such newspapers do more harm than good. 

This same discussion went on in 1721 about James 
Franklin's Courant. His newspaper was not always wise, 
or always just, or always true. But it was bold. It spoke 
right out; it dared to say a good many sharp things about 
the way the colony was governed and " run " ; it poked 
fun at leading people, and made them very, very angry. 

People were not used to such things in those strict 



s!) 



4 



no IF THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 



days ; and, as a result, the editor of the Courant soon got 
into trouble. _ • 

Ben Franklin was a very busy boy at that time, — 
setting type for the Courant, printing it, folding it, and 

delivering it to the subscribers. He 
office-boy, compositor, printer, 
newsboy all in one. And, as 
worked away at the case, 
e kept his ears open. He 
heard all that visitors to the 
Courant office and those 
who wrote for the paper 
had to say about matters 
and things ; and, as he 
had pretty strong opin- 
ions of his own, he came 
to the conclusion that he, 
too, could ^^Tite some- 
thing for the paper that 
people would read. 

So one day he '' wrote 
a piece." Just what it was no one really knows; but it 
is generally believed that it was a sort of dream that 
" pitched into " Harvard College graduates. 

You see, even in those days, boys who educated them- 
selves had a sort of spite against those who could afford 
to go to college, and liked to make fun of them. It is 




THE YOUNG "VEGETARIAN." 



HO IV THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBIES. 



o: 



not a thing to be praised. You remember the fable of the 



fox and the grapes, do you not? Well, it is often just 







that way with boys who cannot go to college. The grapes 
are sour. 

It was so with Benjamin Franklin at that time; 
though he got over the feeling when he became a 
man, and did very much toward ad van 
cing college education in America. So 
the " piece " which he wrote for the 
Cotirant, and which he signed 
" Mrs. Silence Dogood," was 
more saucy than wise. But 
he finished it; and not daring 
to tell his brother what he 
had done, he slipped the paper 
under the printing-house door at 
night, and ran away as fast as his 
legs could carry him. That's just 
the way Charles Dickens did with his 
first story, you know. 

Next morning the "anonymous con- 
tribution " was found, and read aloud by 
Brother James to his friends, while the boy Benjamin stood 
at the case setting type. 

There was just enough of truth in the article to stir 
them up and set them to talking. They enjoyed it greatly. 
They wondered who could have written it, and " guessed " 




HE SLIPPED 
THE PAPER 

UNDER THE 

PRINTING-HOUSE DOOR." 



36 HOW THE BOY-EDITOR If AD HIS TROUBLES. 

about every one of any note or brains in town — except 
that silent apprentice boy at the case. Mustn't he have 
felt proud and "set up," though? 

He did. Telling the story more than fifty years after, 
he said that their approval gave him " exquisite pleasure." 
And when the article appeared in the next number of the 
Courant, young Ben Franklin felt as if he w^ere just about 
the biggest boy in all Boston. 

When he found how well this article "took," he wrote 
more of the same sort, touching up different things that 
were open to criticism in the colony. But when he saw 
how they were enjoyed and talked about by the readers 
of the Courant, he really could not keep his secret longer, 
but confessed that he was the author. 

Thereupon the visitors to the office took more notice of 
him. In fact, they made so much of the boy that Brother 
James became jealous of " young Ben," who was really 
helping him so much. Perhaps he told the boy, in what- 
ever was the printing-office talk of those days, that he was 
" too fresh ; " for Franklin tells us himself that his brother 
James thought, " probably with reason, that this praise 
tended to make me too vain." 

The Cottrant went on growing more and more " saucy "' 
and outspoken and sensational with each new issue, until 
at last the authorities in Boston could stand it no longer. 
They came down hard upon James Franklin for the things 
he said and the fun he made of them in the Coiirant, and 



HO IV THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 37 

finally sent him to jail for what they called " high affront 
to the government." 

When James Franklin was brought into court to be 
tried, young Ben was also arrested and carried into court. 
But when the officials questioned him, and tried to force 
him to tell the secrets of the newspaper and what went 
on in the office, the boy refused to answer. They could 
o-et nothing from him ; and he would have been sent to 
jail along with his brother, but it was decided, at last, that 
he was only an apprentice boy, and, as such, was bound to 
keep his master's secrets. So Ben was set free. 

When James Franklin was sent to prison, there was a 
great discussion among his friends just what to do about 
the Coiirant. But Ben said it must not stop, and those 
most interested told him to go ahead and edit the paper. 

He did so; and instead of being frightened by what had 
been done to his brother, he kept the Courant on in just 
the same w-ay, making one of the earliest fights for what 
is called "_tlie libejjt^_DL. the press " in America. Pretty 
plucky for a boy editor of sixteen, was it not? For, in 
those days, editors and printers who were too bold were 
sometimes sent to jail ; sometimes they had their ears 
clipped; sometimes they were whipped in the streets; some- 
times they were even put to death. 

A .week in jail was too much for Brother James. He 
soon begged off, said he was sorry, and wouldn't do so any 
more ; and, after a month's imprisonment, he was set free. 



'-'^S no IF THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBIES. 

But he did not keep his promises. The Courmit got no 
better. In fact, it grew worse. It kept on finding fault and 
poking fun, until, after standing it for about six months 
longer, the authorities came down once more upon the 
paper, and voted that James Franklin, printer and publisher, 
" be strictly forbidden by this court to print or publish the 
New England Conrant or any other pamphlet or paper of 
like nature, except it be first supervised by the Secretary 
of this Province." 

That looked as if it were the end of. the Courant. But it 
was not. The newspaper was too good a thing to give up. 
So Brother James decided to continue it, but not under his 
name; and the very next week it came out with the notice 
that it was "Printed and Published by Benjamin Franklin." 

So young Ben, the boy editor, got his name before the 
world very early in life. 

But Brother James played a mean trick on the boy. He 
told the world that Benjamin Franklin was no longer his 
apprentice. He cancelled — that is, gave back to his brother 
— his apprenticeship papers; but, secretly, he made the boy 
sign new ones that bound Ben to him as master until he 
should be twenty-one. 

So the Cottrant went on under the name of Benjamin 
Franklin as editor. But the brothers did not get on well. 
James Franklin was a hard master; and the lot of this boy 
editor, who was really no editor, was certainly not a happy 
one. 



HOW THE BOY-EDITOR HAD H/S TROUBLES. 



39 



He was an independent youth, accustomed to speak his 
mind ; and he chafed and fretted under his brother's tyranny, 
often talking back, and often having " regular rows." There 
were bitter w^ords between the brothers in the Courant office; 




TRACKING A RUNAWAY APPRENTICE IN BEN FRANKLIN'S DAY. 

there were many quarrels, and often blows from the elder 
brother, until at last Ben felt that he could not stand it 
any longer. 

He complained to his father. But Josiah Franklin, who 
usually took the boy's part, could not in this case; because, 
by the secret paper which Ben had signed, he had really 



40 now THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 

bound himself to James for four years longer, and no one 
could interfere between master and apprentice. 

Finally Ben told James that he would not work for him 
any more. James told Ben he would have to. 

"I will not," said Ben; "there are other printers in Boston.'* 
"I'll fix them," said James. 

And he did. He went to every printer in town, and told 
them that his brother Ben was bound to him until he was 
twenty-one, and that they would get into trouble if they 
employed him. So, when Ben went about town looking- 
for a new job, he could not get one. 

There was no use talking, he said to himself. His 
brother would not release him; his father would not help 
him; he would not stand that life any longer; he would 
run away. Really, you see, this boy editor's troubles began 
early in life. 

When Benjamin Franklin made up his mind, he gen- 
erally acted at once. " Never put off till to-morrow what 
you can do to-day," was one of his maxims, you know. 

He did a good deal of thinking. His old desire to be 
a sailor had gone. Study and success had shown him that 
he was cut out for a printer, and a printer he would be. 

There were but three towns in all America large enough 
to support printers, — Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. 
In Boston he could not and w^ould not remain. He would 
go to New York. 

He knew he could not get his father's consent to leave. 



now THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 



41 



If he told folks where he was going, his brother could stop 
him or bring him back; for there was a law against run- 
away apprentices just as there was against runaway slaves. 
The newspapers of the day were full of advertisements of 
runaway apprentices; and rewards were offered for their 
return to their masters, just as if they really were slaves. 




"he was soon on blue water, bound for new YORK AND A LIVING." 

So Ben fixed things up quietly with one of his young 
friends. He sold some of his precious books to pay his 
passage. His friend smuggled him on board a sloop 
bound for New York, the captain of which promised to 
ask no questions; and on a certain October morning in 
the year 1723, Ben Franklin, aged seventeen, a runaway 
apprentice, bade a silent good-by to his boyhood home. 



42 HOW THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBIES. 

and was soon on blue water, bound for New York and a 
living. 

In after years, looking back upon his life, he could 
see that he had not done what was right in thus break- 
ing his agreement with his brother and running away. 
But things look very differently to a man of seventy and 
a boy of seventeen. I'm afraid he did have what we 
call "provocation," although he himself tells us, after 
thinking it all over, that " perhaps I was too saucy and 
provoking." 

He had a safe passage to New York. It took much 
longer to get there from Boston than it does to-day ; but 
his sloop was only three days on the way — pretty fair time 
for a sailing-vessel. 

He landed in New York with very little money, and 
without an acquaintance or a friend. But he went to work 
at once hunting for a job, only to discover that there was 
no chance for him to get one. 

For at that time there was but one book-store and one 
printer in all New York. Most of the people read or spoke 
Dutch, and the chances for work for a printer who only 
knew English were pretty slim. That sounds queerly 
enough to us, does it not, when we think of all the printers 
and newspapers in Greater New York to-day. But won- 
derful changes have taken place in this land of ours since 
Benjamin Franklin was a boy; and for the most of them 
we may thank this same Benjamin Franklin, printer, and 




pv/ jiiii(nii((iiuiiibiilllll|i(P'liri("'^ 



BEN WISHES TO PAY FOR HIS PASSAGE, 



HOW THE BOY-ED J TOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 45 

those other noble men of his time, who worked with him 
to make America great. 

Mr. Bradford, the only printer in New York, could do 
" nothing for him." But he told the lad there was more 
of a chance in Philadelphia. He told him also whom to 
see there, if he went, and to say that William Bradford 
recommended him. I suppose he "sized" Ben up, and saw 
that he was a good deal of a boy. 

Ben had just about money enough to get to Philadel- 
phia, and at once he determined to try his luck in the 
Quaker town. 

It was, he thought, the only thing he could do. For, 
though he was a bit discouraged and just a trifle home- 
sick, he was bound not to give up and go back to Bos- 
ton. So he took passage on a leaky old boat that would 
get him as far as Amboy, from which place he believed 
he could walk to Philadelphia. 

He had a rough trip. The crazy old boat was very 
nearly wrecked in New York harbor. For thirty hours 
they swashed about without food or drink, and at last 
came to Amboy, wet, tired, hungry, and half sick. 

But Franklin pulled himself together, and next morn- 
ing manfully started out to tramp it across country to 
Philadelphia, fifty miles away. 

The rain poured down all day. He was drenched 
through; he was tired, foot-sore, and low-spirited; he was 
in danger of being arrested as a runaway; he had no real 



46 I^OIV THE BOY-EDITOR HAD HIS TROUBLES. 

hope of getting any work at his trade when he did reach 
Philadelphia; and altogether it was a very forlorn, shabby, 
and homesick boy that trudged across New Jersey in the 
mud and rain. 

But he kept on, and finally reached Burlington, just 
above Philadelphia. There, by good luck, he "got a lift" 
on a river boat bound for Philadelphia, seventeen miles 
below. 

After a hard passage, in which he had to help the 
boatmen row their heavy old craft against wind and tide, 
he finally landed on Market-street Wharf in Philadelphia. 

It was a Sunday morning in October in the year 1723. 
He had but one silver dollar and about twenty cents in 
coppers. These coppers he insisted on giving the boat- 
men for his fare from Burlington, although they told him 
he had worked his passage. I should say he had ! 

Then he stepped out upon the wharf, dirty, bedraggled, 
hungry, sleepy, and seedy, — a tramping printer looking 
for a job. 

And thus it was that Benjamin Franklin came to Phila- 
delphia — the city that to-day honors^e.yereSj_devates, and 
remembers him as her greatest and noblest citizen. 



HOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 



Al, 



CHAPTER III. 

HOW THE PRINTER LEARNED THE TRUTH OF *AN OLD 

PROVERB. 



THE first thing Ben Franklin did when he stepped 
ashore on the Market-street wharf in Philadelphia 
was to hunt around for something to eat ; for he 
was desperately hungry. 

Up the street he saw a 
baker's boy with a big basket 
of bread. At once he hailed 
him, and asked him for ten 
cents' worth of bread. 

The boy handed him out 
three big puffy rolls, some- 
thing entirely new to the Bos- 
ton boy, who was looking for 
Avhat he called " biscuits." 

Ben's pockets were so 
•stuffed out with other things 
that he did not know just 
what to do with the three loaves. He did know, however, 
that he felt hungry enough to eat all three. So he stuck 




■THE BOY HANDED HIM OUT THREE BIG 
PUFFY ROLLS." 



48 HOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXIM. 

one under each arm, and taking big bites out of the third 
roll as he walked along, went sight-seeing through the 
Philadelphia streets. 

I suppose this hungry, munching boy was rather a 
comical sight for a Sunday morning in staid and sober 
Philadelphia. He himself tells us that he made " a 
most awkward, ridiculous appearance." 

Other people thought so, too. As he passed one of the 
houses on Market Street, a young girl of about his own 
age, who was standing in the doorway, looked curiously 
at this rather tattered, though good-looking young stranger, 
and wondered where under the sun he could have come 
from, and what he was doing, eating his breakfast thus 
in the open street. 

It was no wonder that she should look and laugh at 
this dilapidated young runaway. His coat pockets were 
bulging out with his extra baggage of shirts and stock- 
ings, his buckskin breeches were creased and soiled, his 
out-of-shape hat looked as if it had been slept in, and 
altogether he was rather a frowsy, seedy-appearing young 
man, while the two big rolls stuck under his arms added 
to his comical looks. Ben indeed felt himself, as I have 
told you, that he cut a pretty poor figure; for he was 
always a neat and presentable young fellow, who prided 
himself on always looking trim and smart. 

But any boy would be a rather seedy-looking object 
after eleven days of knocking about, with no chance for a 



HOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OE AN OLD MAXLM. 



49 



change of clothing. I know how it is myself. I tramped 
across country once with two other boys, when I was 
about fifteen, on a vacation-walk from New York to Bos- 
ton, almost without baggage, and I know what a shabby- 
looking trio we were when we got to Boston. 

But that girl in the doorway, whose name was Deborah 
Read, never forgot that travel-stained young stranger who 
passed her father's door, eating his breakfast, that famous 
Sunday morning ; for, years after, Deborah Read became 
Mrs. Benjamin Franklin. 

The boy wandered about the town, taking in every- 
thing as he walked, in his usual wide-awake way, and at 
last found himself again at the place where he had 
landed — on Market-street wharf. He still had his extra 
bread under his arm, for, although he was hungry, one 
of those big loaves was really a meal. So he took a drink 
of river water, gave his remaining loaves to a poor woman 
who had a little boy with her, and who looked quite as 
friendless and just as hungry as himself. 

Feeling a little better after his breakfast, but still very 
sleepy, he walked up Market Street again, and following 
the crowd into a big "meeting-house" on the corner of 
Second and Market Streets, he sat down in a pew and at 
once fell sound asleep. 

He slept all through the service, and then, going out, 
got into conversation with a friendly young Quaker, who 
told him wdiere he could find a cheap and comfortable 



50 no IV HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 

lodging at a tavern near Chestnut Street, called " The 
Crooked Billet." 

He went to the little tavern, and slept all day and all 
night, waking up just long enough to get his dinner and 
supper. The next morning, being Monday, he felt rested 
at last, and after breakfast went out to hunt for work. 

At the first printing-office he went to, whom should 
he meet but the good Mr. Bradford he had seen in New 
York. He had come on to Philadelphia unexpectedly; and 
when he saw the young printer, he went with him to the 
shop of a printer named Keimer, and recommended the 
boy as an excellent workman. And so, on his very first 
day in Philadelphia, Franklin found a good job. 

Mr. Keimer, his new employer, was a curious old fel- 
low; but took kindly to his new journeyman, and hunted 
up a boarding-place for him, which, as luck would have it, 
happened to be the house of the very Mr. Read whose 
daughter had seen and smiled at the tramping young 
printer, as he walked up Market Street eating his open- 
air breakfast on his first morning in Philadelphia. 

His troubles for a time were over, as he had steady 
work and good wages with Mr. Keimer. He had a pleas- 
ant boarding-place. He made friends speedily, as such 
a bright, cheery young fellow is apt to do. He kept on 
reading and studying just as he had in Boston. 

But he could not keep from thinking very often of 
the home he had left in Boston, and wondering how they 




"A YOUNG GIRL OF ABOUT HIS OWN AGE WAS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY." 



HOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXIM. 53 

all were there; although he did not let his people know 
where he was, because he was afraid that if they did, he 
might be arrested, and sent back to Boston as a runaway 
apprentice. At length, however, he did hear from home. 
His brother-in-law was captain of a sloop that ran between 
Boston and Newcastle on the Delaware, some forty miles 
below Philadelphia. 

Somehow or other Captain Holmes, for that was his 
brother-in-law's name, learned that Ben was in Philadelphia. 
He wrote to the boy at once, telling him how badly his 
father and mother felt because Ben had run away, and 
how they had worried about him. He told him, too, that, 
if he would go back to Boston and his brother's employ, 
all would be forgiven." 

But although he would gladly have seen his ''folks" 
once more, Ben had no idea of going back. So he wrote 
a reply to Captain Holmes, explaining just why he had 
run away, and all about his brother's harsh treatment. He 
said, too, that he was much better off where he was, and 
as he had now got a footing in the world, he meant to 
stay in his new home. Philadelphia was the place for a 
young man to get ahead, he said. 

When Captain Holmes read Ben's letter he understood 
things better, and believed that the boy was right. He 
decided that Ben had been harshly treated by Brother 
James, and that, after all, he was not such a bad boy as 
people in Boston imagined. 



54 no IV HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 

Now it happened that, when Captain Holmes received 
young Ben Franklin's letter, he was in the company of 
no less a person than Sir William Keith, the Governor 
of Pennsylvania. 

In those days, when the American colonies were sub- 
ject to the British Crown, the King of England used to 
appoint men to have charge of the several colonies, each 
one being called a governor — although very few of them 
amounted to much in the way of being able to govern. 
So Sir William Keith was Governor of Pennsylvania. He 
had been appointed, with the king's consent, by the sons 
of William Penn, who owned the charter of this province, 
— Proprietories, they were called. 

Of course that made Governor Keith quite a great man 
in the eyes of the people, even if he was not a good man; 
and young Ben's letter was such an excellent one, and so 
well written, that Captain Holmes showed it to the gov- 
ernor, asking him if he did not think his brother-in-law a 
''likely young fellow." 

Ben could write very well, you know ; and the gov- 
ernor was so taken by the way in which the letter was 
WTitten, and by what Captain Holmes said of the young 
man, that he said he would like to see young Frank- 
lin and have a talk with him. "Perhaps," he said, "I can 
do something for him. There isn't a decent printer in 
Philadelphia. I'd like to set up a bright and promising 
young fellow like him in business." 



BO IV HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OE AN OLD MAXLM. 55 



So one day, as Ben was setting type in Keimer's print- 
ing-office, who should call upon him, and set the whole 
office to staring, but the Gov^ernor of Pennsylvania him- 
self. 

Queer Mr. Keimer supposed of course that the gov- 
ernor wished to see him ; but no, Sir William said he 
wished to see '' young 
Mr. Franklin." 

Then the govern- 
or, in his velvets and 
ruffles, took "young 
Mr. Franklin" off to 
the tavern with him. 
And there, after tell- 
inof Ben of the fjood 
report he had heard 
from Captain Holmes, 
the governor said that 
such a bright young 

fellow ought to be able to do well if he could only get 
a good footing ; and he finally proposed to Ben that, if his 
father would help start him in business in Philadelphia, 
he, Sir William Keith, would see that he had all the gov- 
ernment printing, and much more besides. 

He made such promises and so flattered the young 
man that Ben felt sure his fortune was as good as made. 
The governor invited him to call, had him often to dine. 




YOUNG MR. FRANKLIN " AND THE GOVERNOR. 



56 BOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 

and got him so filled with the idea of starting for him- 
self in Philadelphia, that finally Franklin did go back to 
Boston to see his father, and try and get his help. 

It was in the month of April, 1724, that Ben Frank- 
lin sailed home to Boston. His return was quite different 
from his going. Then he had sneaked away by stealth, 
a runaway apprentice ; now he went sailing back, with 
money in his pocket, his passage paid, good clothes on 
his back, and a letter of praise and promises to his father 
from a real live governor. It reads almost like a fairy- 
story, doesn't it? The young man felt that it was almost 
like a fairy-story too. He felt like a prince coming back; 
and quite like a prince did he conduct himself. 

Every one welcomed him back except Brother James; 
and when young Ben strolled into the printing-office with 
quite a lordly air, telling big stories of Philadelphia, show- 
ing off his fine new watch, displaying his money, patroniz- 
ing the apprentice boys, and "treating" the journeymen, 
his brother scowled at him, and was sulky and silent. 

When Mrs. Franklin tried to bring the brothers to- 
gether, and have them "make it up," James flatly refused. 
He complained to his mother that Ben had been impu- 
dent, that he had "shown off" in the printing-office, and 
insulted him, James Franklin, before all his people. 

Josiah Franklin, Ben's wise father, read the governor's 
letter. Then he talked it all over with Captain Holmes, 
who also was back in Boston. But Josiah Franklin evi- 



now HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 



SI 



dently did not take to Ben's plan. The governor, he said, 
must be a person of very little judgment to talk of set- 
ting up a boy of 
eighteen in business. 
'' Why, it was ab- 
surd," he said. 

So, while he was 
glad that Ben was do- 
ing so well, and had 
made such good and 
influential friends, he 
told him he was 
flatly opposed to his 
thinking: of starting: 
in business before he 
was tw^enty-one. 

"You just work 
and save until that 
time, Ben," he said, 
"and then, if I can 
help you a little, I 
will do so ; but this 
scheme of the governor's is wild, and I do not like it." 

So Ben had to go back without the money he needed. 
To tell the truth, he hardly expected his father would do 
what he desired, though he did think that, with a gov- 
ernor to back him, his father might have felt inclined to 




WHERE FRANKLIN LEARNED HIS TRADE. 
{TJw corner of Cojirt Street and FrattkUu Avenue, in Boston.) 



58 HOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 

help. But he had great faith in Sir William Keith, and 
thought that the governor would be able to fix things 
somehow^ 

And sure enough, when he had returned to Philadel- 
phia, after bidding good-by to all his Boston friends, and 
bringing away the good wishes and kind words of every 
one except sulky Brother James, the governor said he 
would see him through. 

"Your father is too prudent," he said, after he had read 
the thankful but decisive letter of refusal which Josiah 
Franklin had sent him by Ben. " It's good all men are 
not so cautious. There never would be anything done. 
Such a likely young fellow as you, Franklin," he continued, 
" ought to be helped to a good start in life, and if your 
father won't do it, why I will. You just figure up and 
find how much money you need to start a good printing- 
office here, and then come to me." 

So, highly elated over his great good fortune, Ben 
figured up how much was needed, and told the governor 
that, with about five hundred dollars, he could start a fine 
office. 

" Five hundred dollars, eh ? " said Governor Keith. 
" That's not so much. Suppose, now, you should go across 
to London to stock up. Couldn't you get a better outfit 
there, for the money, than you could here ? " 

Ben told him he certainly could. 

"Then, too," continued the governor, "you could make 



HO IP' HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 59 

acquaintances there, and form connections with booksellers 
to do business for them here. Yes, that is a good plan. 
I think you had better go. So get yourself ready, Frank- 
lin, to go over with Captain Annis. I'll give you letters 
of introduction and credit that will help you through, and 
we'll show your father, and Philadelphia too, what a fine 
business we can do." 

Here was a great chance, thought Ben. He could not 
thank the governor enough. 

" What a lucky fellow I am," he said to himself, " to 
have so great a man as Governor Sir William Keith as 
a friend." 

And at once he made ready to sail for London, feel- 
ing himself a rich man already. 

So when, a few months later, the ship London-Hope, 
Captain Annis, master, set sail from Philadelphia for Lon- 
don, Ben Franklin w^ent on boards well fitted out, and full 
of great expectations. 

To be sure the governor had not given him the letters 
he promised ; but the governor's secretary saw him off, 
and said the letters would come on board with the mail- 
packet. 

Ben felt very happy. He \\as going to England ; he 
would see London — the splendid city he had so longed 
to visit, full of books and great people. He w^as going 
with a governor's backing and introduction. He was en- 
gaged to Deborah Read, whom he was to marry when he 



6o HOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD ALAXLM. 



got back, and everything was delightful. I don't wonder 
the young man felt happy, do you ? 

He was well received on board the vessel as a friend 

of the governor ; he 
made many pleasant 
acquaintances, and 
some good and en- 
during friendships; 
and so he sailed over 
the sea, proud and 
confident and cheer- 
ful. 

But alas ! pride, 
as you know, often 
goes before a fall ; 
and poor Ben Frank- 
lin's fall was sudden 
and heavy. 

For, when he got 
to London, he had 
a terrible disappoint- 
ment. There were 
no letters of recommendation, introduction, or credit for 
him to deliver from Governor Keith. The only ones he 
found bearing his name were simply sent in his care, and 
were from a man who had no credit and no influence in 
London. He found, too, that the governor, for all his 




WILLIAM i I.N.N. 
{The yirst Proprietor o/ Pennsylvania.) 



HOW BE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXIM. 6 1 

great name, had no friends there, and that his word was 
not worth anything as a help or a backing. For Sir 
William Keith was a broken bankrupt, who had been sent 
to Pennsylvania as governor simply to get him out of the 
way; and poor Ben, after a disheartening downfall, realized 




"poor ben had been bitterly fooled." 



that this unreliable man had only been fooling him with 
big promises — just why he never could understand. 

He had simply found out, in a hard and heartless 
way, the truth of the old Bible proverb : Put not your 
trust in princes. He had trusted one who, to him, was 



62 HOW HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 

as great as a prince — a governor. And the governor was 
only great in big words and glittering promises. Poor 
Ben had been bitterly fooled. 

But Benjamin Franklin was never one to sit down 
and fret. He never would despair. Just what to do he 
did not know; but he" did know he must do something. 
He could not go back to America until he had earned 
money enough to take him back. He must try to get a 
job, and get it soon. It was rough, wasn't it? But Ben 
had good health and plenty of pluck, and set out at once 
to find work. 

He found it very soon. He was a good workman, 
you know ; and he speedily got a good job in a London 
printing-office, where he hoped soon to earn enough to 
get him back to America again. 

But London was very fascinating to this young man 
from far-off America. He made good wages, but he spent 
them almost as fast as earned, or else others spent them 
for him. For the first time in his life he grew careless 
and went wrong. He fell into bad ways, *' sowed his wild 
oats," as the saying is, forgot his friends in America, for- 
got his '* dear Deborah," and spent months and months 
in London working steadily at his trade, to be sure, but 
having what he foolishly called '* a good time." 

Then, at last, he awoke to the knowledge that he was 
not doing right. He turned over a new leaf at once, worked 
hard, saved money, and finally engaged with one of the 



HOJV HE LEARNED THE TRUTH OF AN OLD MAXLM. 63 

good friends he had made on the voyage across to go back 
with him to Philadelphia. 

This friend, whose name was Mr. Denham, liked young 
Franklin very much, and thought he was certain to be a 
successful man, if he were once set right. Mr. Denham 
had decided to open a general store in Philadelphia, and 
he asked Franklin to be his head clerk and bookkeeper. 
To this Franklin gladly consented. 

So, after living in London for nearly two years, Frank- 
lin sailed back to America. 

His own plans had all gone wrong. His dreams of a 
fine future for himself as the leading printer of Philadel- 
phia had not come true. He had fallen upon hard times, 
and only his pluck and knowledge of a trade had carried 
him through. 

But he had learned a lesson he never forgot. It was 
one that stood him well as a guide and a warning through 
all his busy life. He had learned when to trust and whom 
to trust. He knew that, as the farmers say, *' fine words 
butter no parsnips." He knew that all is not gold that 
glitters, and that a man to succeed must help himself, 
and not rely on others to help him. It takes some men 
a lifetime to learn all this, but Benjamin Franklin was 
fortunate enough to learn it early in life. 

And so, on the 21st of July, 1726, he took ship again 
for America, with a good stock of experience with which 
to start life over ao^ain. 



64 BOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 

FRANKLIN came back to Philadelphia prepared to 
" clerk it " in what for him was a new kind of busi- 
ness. But he did not " clerk it " long^. 

Soon after the store was fairly stocked and started, Mr. 
Denham, the proprietor, fell sick and died. Franklin, also, 
was very sick at the same time. It was thought that he, 
too, would die; but he had youth and a strong constitution 
in his favor, and he pulled through. 

But he recovered his health only to find Mr. Denham's 
business closed, and he himself again out of work. 

It looks as if poor Ben had very hard luck about that 
time of his life, does it not? But it all turned out for the 
best. He had his trade to fall back on. He soon found 
work as a printer, and a printer he remained all through 
his business life, or until he gave his time and strength to 
the service of his countrymen and the good of mankind. 

His life as an active printer in Philadelphia lasted 
through twenty busy years. He worked as a journeyman ; 
then he went into business for himself, taking a fellow- 
printer as his partner. He lived carefully, saved money, 



HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER, 65 

prospered, and, at last, became quite wealthy, for those 
days. 

He was twenty-two when he set up the firm of Frank- 
lin & Meredith, on Market Street in Philadelphia. Finally 
he bought out his partner, and the sign " B. Franklin, 
Printer," was for years one of the best known in the town.' 
That name stood for good work, honest work, reliable 
work; for Franklin had learned that in business, as in 
everything else, " honesty is the best policy." 

"There are no gains without pains," said Franklin. 
^' He that hath a trade hath an estate, and he that hath 
a calling hath an office of profit and honor; only," he 
added, " the trade must be worked at, and the calling' well 
followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable 
us to pay our taxes." 

On this plan he worked at his business, and whenever 
he saw a chance to add to it profitably he did so. He 
started a newspaper; he opened a book and stationery 
store; he published a magazine; and, regularly, for twenty- 
five years, he made and printed an almanac that did more 
to educate his countrymen to habits of industry, econ- 
omy, independence, and manhood than anything else in 
America. It was called ''Poor Richard's Almanac," and 
it is acknowledged to have been one of the causes and 
stepping-stones toward the Declaration of Independence 
and the freedom of America. 

On the I St of September, 1730, he married Deborah 



66 



HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER, 



Read, the girl who had seen him walking the streets the 
first morning he was in Philadelphia. For forty-four years 
they lived together as husband and wife, helping one an- 
other along the road to success and riches, and setting the 
world an example of real home-making and home-happiness. 




"HE MARRIED DEBORAH READ." 



During the twenty years of his active business life, 
Franklin, as I have told you, went into anything connected 
with his line of business that promised success. 

He carried on a general printing business ; he was edi- 



HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 67 

tor, compositor, proof-reader, author, bookseller and sta- 
tioner, bookbinder and publisher. He made lamp-black. 
He made ink. He made paper. He bought and sold the 
rags of which paper was made. He was a feather mer- 
chant; and he was, even what he had hated as a boy, a 
soap-maker. Now and then, if he saw a good chance, he 
went outside of his regular business, dealing in groceries, 
hardware, and household goods. 

His wife, Deborah, was, as I have told you,* his best 
and busiest helper. She "tended store" for him; she 
bought the rags for his paper-mill ; she stitched pamphlets 
in his bindery; she folded newspapers in his printing-office, 
and kept his home neat, orderly, and homelike. 

"We throve together," Franklin wrote in after years, 
" and ever endeavored to make each other happy. We 
kept no idle servants; our table was plain and simple, 
our furniture was of the cheapest, and I ate my breakfast 
of bread and milk out of a twopenny earthen porringer, 
with a pewter spoon." 

It was no wonder they saved money, got ahead in the 
world, and at length became rich and comfortable. They 
were never mean nor small ; they were simply saving, in- 
dustrious, and clever. 

Franklin wore his leather apron in shop and store ; he 
wheeled home the goods he bought, made his own lamp- 
black, mixed his own ink, and where other printers tried 
and failed, he tried and succeeded. 



68 HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 

He was the first man in America to understand how 
to advertise. He advertised himself, and finally, because 
of his success, led others to advertise, and thus made his 
newspaper pay. Benjamin Franklin was one of the few 
men who practised what he preached. His advice to 
other men was — these are his own words : ** Employ thy 
time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure ; and since thou 
art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour." That 
was good advice, was it not? Franklin acted on that 
principle himself, and the result was that after twenty 
years of hard work he was able to enjoy the leisure he 
desired for his own enjoyment and the welfare of others. 

He simply practised what he preached. It is not an 
easy thing to do, boys and girls ; but when a man or 
woman really does this, he or she is certain to get ahead 
in life, just as Franklin did. 

No one could ever get him to do a mean thing in 
business, or take an undue advantage of any one, even 
if he saw that by so doing he could gain trade or make 
money for himself. 

When people wished him to publish in his newspaper 
anything unjust, or mean, or personal about others, Frank- 
lin would tell them he would not do it. " It might make 
a sensation, and set people to talking or to buying my 
paper," he declared, "but it is malicious and hurtful. I'll 
print it for you," he said, "or anything you can pay for; 
but you must send it out over your own name, and dis- 




I SOMETIMES BROUGHT HOME THE PAPER . . . THROUGH THE STREET ON A WHEELBARROW. 



HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 7 1 

tribute it yourself. I will not help you to be unjust and 
unfair. My newspaper is to give the news and to tell 
the truth, not to run down other people or make them 
uncomfortable." 

That was quite a change from the old days of the 
New England Conrant, in which he had been taught to 
" pitch into " other people, was it not ? It would be a 
good thing for some of the newspapers of to-day to follow. 

When one of his rivals in the newspaper business did 
a small thing toward Franklin by trying to keep his paper 
out of the market, Franklin was disgusted. '' I thought 
so meanly of the practice," he says, "that when I after- 
wards came into his situation " (and was able to do the 
same thing, he means), " I took care never to imitate it." 

That was being a gentleman; and Benjamin Franklin, 
even when he wore his leather apron, made lamp-black, 
and mixed his own ink, was always a true gentleman. 
He knew what was right and just, and he did that, and 
only that. 

So you see he got ahead in the world steadily and 
surely. He made influential friends and kept them. 
People liked to deal with him ; for they knew they could 
rely on what he said, and that what he promised, that 
he would perform. His business increased; he stood at 
the head of his trade in Philadelphia; he was the lead- 
ing newspaper publisher in America; he grew influential, 
prominent, and rich; and, after twenty years of hard work, 



72 



flOJV THE FIUXTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 



found himself making almost ten thousand dollars a year, 
and able, at last, to retire from active business, and give 
his time and attention to other matters, in which he had 




"he was the leading newspaper publisher in AMERICA." 



gradually been getting interested. That is a record that 
any business man would be proud of. Ten thousand dol- 
lars a year was a good deal of money in those days, and 



HO IV THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 73 

all men looked up to Franklin as a great success in busi- 
ness as well as in manhood. 

But money does not make the man, and money was 
not what Franklin thought the most of. " A wise man," 
he said, " will desire no more than what he may get 
justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave con- 
tentedly." He worked hard for his money in order that 
he might make the best use of it, and he did. 

There are three kinds of boys and girls in the world, 
— and of men and women too, — those who think only of 
themselves, those who think of nothing, and those who 
think of others as well as of themselves. 

If you know which kind of a boy you like best, you 
can tell pretty well about the kind of man too. Franklin 
was one of the best kind, as boy and as man. There 
was no one who had less time to spare from his busi- 
ness than he ; and yet he made time to do good. 

So he was always busy thinking up some wise or use- 
ful or helpful thing — something that would help men 
and women either to live or to do. 

Whenever he made money enough to have a little to 
spare, he would help one of his journeymen into busi- 
ness on his own account. And he was so good at study- 
ing men that he rarely lost money by helping them. 

"Leisure," he said, "is the time for doing something 
useful; this leisure the diligent man will attain, but the 
lazy man never." 



74 NOJV THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 

This was one of Franklin's ''preachings;" and, practis- 
ing it, he always employed his moments of leisure by 
doing something useful. 

He was always, even from a boy, you know, a thought- 
ful fellow. From the day when he paid too dear for 
his whistle — you remember the story — he began to think 
things out for himself. Every trouble he faced set him 
to turning even his worries into teachers, from whom he 
learned of prudence, patience, and endeavor. Like that 
fine old Roman emperor, who was so much better than 
his people, Marcus Aurelius, he made of every obstacle 
in his road a help along the road, and, like Marcus Aure- 
lius again, he became, as he studied into the whys and 
w^herefores of things, a man who thought to good pur- 
pose, — in other words, what the world calls a philosopher. 

He tried to make himself better, while yet a young 
man, by watching himself; and to do this systematically, 
he kept a little book, in which he made a table of a 
dozen or more good qualities, such as temperance, order, 
industry, sincerity, cleanliness, humility, etc. 

Every day he would go over this list, just like a book- 
keeper in a store, and put a check against such of the 
" virtues " as he had not followed out. Day by day, week 
by week, he would follow this up, keeping the black 
marks always before him, until by the end of the year 
they grew less and less, and he had his conduct under 
fair control. How is that, boys and girls? Do you think 



HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 



75 



you could keep such an account with yourselves, and cure 
yourselves of bad habits by putting them down in black 
and white until you had figured them down to nothing? 
Just try it once and see. 

From giving advice to himself he fell to giving advice 
to others, not in an objectionable manner, but in a friendly, 
practical way, in which he would try results with his 
companions. 

Even when he was " sowing his wild oats " in Lon- 
don he would sandwich some good between his careless 
acts. He showed his fellow-workmen how they could save 
money and improve their health by stopping their beer- 
drinking; and he kept himself poor by helping a heedless 
comrade-printer, who had come to London with Franklin 
because he loved him. 

When he was really in business on his own hook, one 
of his earliest business ventures was putting good advice 
to good use by bringing out each year the little pam- 
phlet known as '' Poor Richard's Almanac." 

Besides the monthly calendar that all almanacs have, 
and a lot of comic rhymes and take-offs, he had recipes 
and cures, and, sprinkled in between, some of the wise 
thoughts and helpful sayings that set people to thinking, 
and which they always remembered. 

You know many of them by heart yourself. Perhaps 
you have said them, never thinking who wrote them or 
why they were written. 



76 HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 

" Early to bed and early to rise 
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." 

That is one of them. You know it, do you not? and 
you know very well what it means. 



A N • 



I ! 



Almanack 



the Year of Chrift 



I 7 3 9. 



..una' ions. 



II 



L 



O 



TITLE-PAGE AND SPECIMEN PAGE FROM "POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC." 

" God helps those that help themselves " was another 
f his sayings ; and here I add a number, any one of 



HOJV THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. nn 

which you can easily understand, and all of which are 
full of wisdom, wit, and helpfulness. Read these : 

" Well done is better than well said." 

" Each year some vicious habit rooted out 
In time might make the worst man good throughout." 
*' When befriended, remember it ; 
When you befriend, forget it." 
" Have you somewhat to do to-morrow ? do it to-day." 
" Quarrels never could last long, 
If on one side only lay the wrong." 
"Make haste slowly." 
"The things which hurt, instruct." 

" A slip of the foot you may soon recover. 
But a slip of the tongue you may never get over." 
"When you're good to others you are best to yourself." 
"If your riches are yours, why don't you take them to the other world?" 

" 'Tis more noble to forgive and more manly to despise than to revenge an 
injury." 

"It is not leisure that is not used." 

" Haste makes waste." 

" Virtue and a trade are a child's best portion." 

"The cat in gloves catches no mice." 

" For age and want, save while you may ; 
No morning sun lasts a whole day." 
"Speak little, do much." 

"There never was a good knife made of bad steel." 
" Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn." 
" Plough deep while sluggards sleep, 
And you shall have corn to sell and to keep." 
" One To-day is worth two To-morrows." 

You would be surprised to know how much these sim- 
ple, homely sayings helped people. For twenty-five years 



78 HOW THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 

Franklin published •' Poor Richard's Almanac." Thousands 
of copies were sold ; and, in those days of few books, there 
were many humble homes in which only two books were 
owned, — the Bible and " Poor Richard's Almanac." 

But Franklin did more than write wise things; he did 
them. Almost the first thing he did when he got to work 
again in Philadelphia, after his hard times in London, 
was to start among his fellow-workmen and companions a 
society for mutual improvement. He called it the Junto. 
It was little more than a boys' club at first ; but it kept 
alive for more than forty years, and was of real and last- 
ing benefit to its members, to the town, the province, and 
America. 

It began, as I have told you, as a sort of mutual im- 
provement society; that is, these young fellows met every 
Friday night, and tried to say or to do something that 
should be of benefit to their fellow-members. They would 
talk over all the things that were happening about them, 
and see what good might be gained, or how things might 
be improved. 

They had a list of questions which each member of 
the club had to answer in one way or another. Some 
of these questions will give you an idea of what was 
done in Franklin's boys' club: 

" Do you know of a fellow-citizen who has lately done a worthy action, deserv- 
ing praise or imitation ; or who has lately committed an error proper for us to be 
warned against and avoid ? 



HOJV THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 79 

" What new story have you heard agreeable for telling in conversation ? 

" Have you or any of your acquaintances been lately sick or wounded ? If so, 
what remedies were used, and what were their effects ? 

" Do you think of anything at present in which the Junto may be serviceable 
to mankind, to their country, to their friends, or to themselves ? 

" Do you know of any deserving young beginner, lately set up, whom it lies 
in the power of the Junto in any way to encourage ? 

" Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the 
people ? 

" Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any 
of them, can procure ? 

" What benefits have you lately received from any man not present ? 

" Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice and injustice, which 
you would gladly have discussed at this time ? " 

There were other questions besides these, but you can 
see from these I have copied down what the idea of the 
club was. Every boy had to do something — tell a story, 
sing a song, speak a piece, read an essay; while in the 
summer they w^ould have swimming or wrestling or jump- 
ing matches "across the river," and once a year they would 
have a dinner. 

For a long time there were only a dozen members. 
They would admit no more ; and, as the most of them 
worked at their trades, folks sometimes called the Junto 
the ** Leather-Apron Club." At their meetings, too, they 
would have discussions and debates on all sorts of ques- 
tions: "Which is best, to make a friend of a wise and 
good man that is poor, or of a rich man that is neither 
wise nor good?" "Whence comes the dew that stands on 
the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it, in the 



8o now THE FJ^TNTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 

summer time?" "Can a man arrive at perfection in life?" 
" Can any particular form of government suit all man- 
kind ? " "How shall we judge of the goodness of a writ- 
ing?" "Does it not require as much pains, study, and 
application to become truly wise and strictly virtuous as 
to become rich ? " You see they had plenty of important 
questions to occupy their times of meeting. 

Franklin took great pleasure in this club for many 
years, and he found that the other members enjoyed it 
so much that he proposed that each member of the Junto 
should start another club to which no other member of 
the Junto could belong. So out of this boys' club grew 
a number of others, to their own and other people's benefit. 

Out of the Junto, too, as Franklin suggested, grew 
another great movement. There were so many questions 
to be discussed and answered which required reading and 
study, that he suggested a subscription library, so that 
members and their friends could have the use of books. 
After much hard work and the raising of some money — 
which was also hard — about two hundred dollars was 
obtained, and the books desired were ordered from London. 
This was in March, 1732, and was the foundation of a 
library which has grown and grown until to-day it is the 
great Philadelphia Library. 

The Pennsylvmiia Gazette, which was the name of 
Franklin's paper, was the most wide-awake and "newsy" 
newspaper in all America. Through its columns, too, 



HOJF THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 



8i 



^ 



Franklin proposed and started many things that were of 
great benefit to his town and colony. He wTote the news, 
wrote the editorials, wrote the jokes, wrote everything, 
except what came from outside contributors. 

He would start all sorts of discussions. One week he 




THE PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY OF TO-DAY. 
{Tlie Outgrowth of Franklin'' s Work in t fie Junto.) 



would write a letter " to Mr. Franklin," as if it came from 
some one else, asking some question, or proposing some 
plan ; and the next week he would answer it himself, as 
editor. This would set other folks to thinking or writing; 



82 HO IV THE PRINTER BECAME A PHILOSOPHER. 

and, in that manner, very often some bad way would be 
bettered, some good reform started, or some excellent im- 
provement begun. 

In this way the Gazette was built up to success, and 
Philadelphia was benefited. It was Franklin who, through 
his newspaper, improved the city watch — the old form of 
the police department; he started the first fire company 
in the town, had the streets lighted, the pavements swept, 
the militia organized, and the fire department established. 

So you see, from small beginnings, but wath pluck and 
brains and plenty of hard work, the candle-maker's son 
grew to be a person of value and help to the community 
in which he lived. While working for himself he worked 
for others also ; and while, by saving and shrewdness, he 
put money into his own pocket, he put good thoughts, 
noble suggestions, and wise plans for improvement, into 
the heads and hearts of those about him. 

This was being a philosopher to some purpose, w^as it 
not? For, as people saw this very young printer making a 
success of his life, they saw, too, that he was doing other 
people good, and came gradually to look up to him as to 
a leader, guide, and friend. 

And so, at the early age of forty-two, Benjamin Frank- 
lin was able to retire from business, and devote his time 
to wise and worthy objects. 



BOJV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 83 




CHAPTER V. 

HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

HEN you boys join together in any sport or 
work or great discussion, there is always one 

boy, is there not, whom you look upon as the 
moving spirit — the chief or leader of ''the crowd"? He 
is generally that because he thinks out things the best or 
the soonest, plans the most satisfactorily, and is willing 
to lead. If he fails or doesn't "come up to the mark," 
you soon desert him for one better suited to lead. 

It is so with men. One who is willing, without seek- 
ing, or who shows that he is able to do things without 
too persistently putting himself forward, will soon find 
that he is selected for labors or duties which need to be 
done, and which grow more important as he is able to 
stand the test, or as he shows himself inventive in plans 
and wise leadership. 

Franklin was just such a man. He was just such a 
boy too. Don't you remember how, when he was a boy 
in Boston, he was always foremost in plans for fun, and 
sometimes in pranks too, that called for a captain to lead? 
He proposed building that wharf in the minnow marsh; 



84 HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

you know, and he led all the " stumps " in swimming and 
boating and playing. He was head of the spelling-class; 
he took the lead among the apprentices at the printing- 
offices ; he, by his ingenuity in new plans, helped to save 
his brother's newspaper from dulness and failure. 

He kept on in just this way all his life. People found 
out that he could do things, and they asked him to do 
them. But it was his mind quite as much as his ability 
and his willingness that led ; and these combined, brought 
him forward in direction and leadership. 

Even while he was a tireless, hard-working man of 
business in Philadelphia, his townsmen began to refer to 
him and to ask his advice and help in their home affairs. 
His shop became the place for meetings and discussions; 
his newspaper gave these ideas to the public; and, when 
the time for action came, it was Franklin who proposed 
or advocated sensible plans for the improvement or pro- 
tection of the community, or was asked by his townsmen 
to undertake the work that must be done. 

In the year 1736, when Franklin Avas just thirty years 
old, he had his first public office. It was not much. It 
was simply clerk or secretary to the general assembly of 
the colony of Pennsylvania — what we call the legislature 
— then composed of about forty members. 

It did not give him so very much to do or bring him 
in much salary; but it did give him a certain position in 
the community, and he did so well that he w^as re-elected. 



JIOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 85 

About the same time he was elected a trustee of the 
public school or ''academy" that had been opened in Phil- 
adelphia at his suggestion ; the governor of the province 
appointed him a justice of the peace; the city of Phila- 
delphia selected him first for the common council, and 
then made him an alderman ; and, soon after, he was 
elected a burgess — that is, a member of the colonial 
legislature, known, as \ have told you, as the General 
Assembly, and to this he was re-elected ten times. 

All these honors came to him unsought, or, as he tells 
us, " without my even asking any elector for his vote, or 
signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire of being 
chosen." That was pretty good, was it not? It was good 
for those who so honored him too. 

While he was clerk of the Assembly, in 1737, he was 
made assistant-postmaster of Philadelphia, and was the 
first one to suggest better postal arrangements for Amer- 
ica. In 1738 he was named as one of two commissioners 
to visit and treat with the Indians of the Ohio country, 
— and there were plenty of them there in those days. 
He served as postmaster of Philadelphia for sixteen years ; 
and when, in 1753, the postmaster-general for the colonies 
died, the authorities in England appointed Benjamin 
Franklin of Philadelphia as postmaster-general of the 
American colonies. That was getting ahead pretty well 
for the candle-maker's son, — don't you think so? 

Indeed, he did so well whatever was given him to do 



S6 HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

that by this time — about 1753 — he was well known, 
both in England and America, and considered as one of 




MONUMENT TO FRANKLINS PARENTS. 



(/« the Old Granary Buryhig Ground, Boston. Erected in 1829, by the Citizens of Boston, on the site 0/ one 
put there by Franklin on one of his visits to his boyhood'' s home.) 

the wisest and most reliable men in " his Majesty's colo- 
nies in America." 

As postmaster-general he was kept busy. He had to 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 87 

travel to all the principal points on the Atlantic border 
looking after post-office matters ; and he did his work in 
such a business-like way that, for the first time in the his- 
tory of America, he made the post-office pay. 

In this duty of looking after post-office affairs he vis- 
ited Boston, the home of his boyhood. He went there 
with authority and dignity; and you can well imagine that 
Benjamin Franklin, postmaster-general of the colonies, was 
quite a different character in Boston from Benjamin Frank- 
lin, the runaway apprentice of 1723. Thirty years had 
made a great man of that poor, ill-treated boy. 

He had been home twice before. In fact, he made a 
practice of going back to Boston once every ten years. 
He dearly loved the old town to the day of his death. 
When he was eighty-two years old he spoke of it with 
affection as " that beloved place ; " and he was always writ- 
ing to his brothers and sisters there, especially to his 
favorite younger sister Jane, who outlived him. 

In the Old Granary Burying Ground, as I have told 
you, on one of these visits he placed a memorial above 
the grave of his honored parents. And you may also be 
glad to know that on one such visit to Boston he " made 
up" with sulky Brother James, who was sick and unsuc- 
cessful. He took James's ten-year-old boy back to Phila- 
delphia, sent him to school, taught him a trade, and finally 
set him up in business as a printer at Newport, in Rhode 
Island. I imagine Brother James thought, after all, that 



88 HO IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY EOR THE FIRST TIME. 

it was a good thing that his apprentice did run away and 
strike out for himself. 

The British colonies in North America in those days 
needed men of brains and will to help them over the rough 
places. They were having hard times. Their masters, the 
king and parliament of England, were using the colonists 
as something to make money from, and not as brother 
Englishmen who needed help, protection, and kindness. 

In fact, the American colonies had to protect them- 
selves; and when, because of the "rows" between England, 
France, and Spain, who were struggling for supremacy 
in Europe and the ownership of America, it looked as 
though war was to come, some one in each of the colonies 
was needed who could look out for America's interests, 
safety, — almost for her very existence. 

In the colony of Pennsylvania this man for the times 
was, of course, Benjamin Franklin. Pennsylvania, you 
know, was different from the other colonies. It belonged 
to the Penn family, by gift of the king of England; and 
the king only was a " bigger man " than the Penns. The 
Penn family sent over the governor, and had a certain part 
of the revenues of the colony; but the people, by their 
General Assembly, governed the colony, in connection with 
the governor. So, you see, when trouble came, only the 
king or the Penn family could send help. But they did 
not; and Franklin said to the people, "If our governor 
cannot protect us we must protect ourselves" — for, you 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 89 

know, it was one of bis mottoes that *' God helps those 
who help themselves." 

But Pennsylvania was a Quaker colony, and one of the 
chief points in the Quaker belief was peace with all men. 
"You must not strike back," they said. "War is wrong; 
so it is wicked to engage in war or fighting, and it is 
very bad to be a soldier." 

This is all very well to a certain extent. But self-pro- 
tection is not only man's duty, it is a necessity if the state 
is to be saved and made strong, and its men and women 
hope to live in real peace and prosperity. 

None knew this better than Franklin. So, when he 
saw the danger, and what might happen if the colony were 
left unprotected, he wrote and pleaded and planned and 
worked until at last he got enough men, who were not 
Quakers, to think as he did, and to back him up. 

He found that he could not get help from the king, 
neither could he get the Quaker assembly to vote money 
for the defence of the colony. So he called upon the peo- 
ple to help; and, after a public meeting in which he roused 
the citizens to action, he sent around subscription papers, 
asking for volunteers to serve as soldiers, and for money 
to build a fort and start a militia. 

He succeeded. The colonists, thanks to Franklin's 
energy, responded nobly. Ten thousand names went on 
the subscription paper; twelv^e hundred men enlisted as 
militia to act as a home-guard. 



90 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 



When the Philadelphia regiment was formed, Franklin 
was elected colonel. But he said he was not a military 
man ; he was, he declared, " unfit " for the position. So 
another man was made colonel. But Franklin joined the 



regiment. 



More money was raised. A log fort was built for the 
protection of the town ; and then Franklin travelled to 
New York to beg or borrow guns from Clinton, the gov- 
ernor of the neighboring colony. 

He did just as well there. For when Governor Clinton 
said, at first, that he would not lend the Philadelphians a 
single cannon, Franklin talked and coaxed and joked until 
at last the governor said, "Well, take six." Franklin kept 
at him; "You can have ten," said the governor. Still 
Franklin worked, and, at last, made so good a friend of 
the governor of New York that he went back to Phila- 
delphia with eighteen fine large cannons and the gun 
carriages on which to mount them. 

The guns were placed in position on the new fort ; 
the home-guard did regular drill and guard duty, night 
and day, until the danger was over, and the man who had 
brought it all about and saved the colony from attack 
and the whole country from invasion, who had himself de- 
clined the part of colonel, did duty with the other soldiers, 
and served as a private soldier, standing guard when his 
time came just as the humblest militia-man did. 

His energetic action, of course, greatly pleased the gov- 



HOJV BE SAVED THE COUNTRY EOR THE FIRST TIME. 9 1 

ernor, who had seen the danger, but could do nothing to 
prevent it. He sought Franklin's advice more and more, 
and looked to him for help in many ways. Thus Frank- 








YOU CAN HAVE TEN,'' SAID THE GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK. 



lin had his revenge, in a way, you see ; for one governor 
of Pennsylvania had played him a mean trick when he 
was a poor young printer. Now this same Franklin had 



02 HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

become the trusted advisor of another governor of Penn- 
sylvania, and, instead of deceiving, had helped him. 

The trouble between France and England grew worse 
and worse. It was necessary that the Indian tribes who 
were friendly to the British and the colonists should 
be kept friendly. The British authorities requested these 
American colonies to select men called commissioners, two 
from each colony, and send them to Albany to meet and 
talk with the Indians on the Canadian border. These 
Indians were a powerful and warlike confederacy, and were 
known as the Six Nations. You can read about them 
in Cooper's splendid story, " The Last of the Mohicans." 
Upon them England relied for the protection of the 
Canadian border. For Canada, you know, in those days 
belonged to France. 

Franklin was appointed one of the commissioners from 
Pennsylvania. He went to Albany, and the Six Nations 
were prevailed upon to remain friendly to England. 

But, as Franklin travelled towards Albany, the idea 
struck him that, as he was going to meet representatives 
from the other colonies, it would be a fine idea to bring 
about even more than this Indian treaty. 

"Why not get all the colonies to unite in a plan for 
mutual protection?" he thought; "why not form a union 
under one colonial government and one council or assem- 
bly made up of representatives from all colonies ? This 
would make us strong; it would enable us to help our- 




FRANKLIN STANDING GUARD AS A PRIVATE SOLDIER. 



HOJr HE SAVED THE COUXTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 



95 



selves ; it would be a great help for the colonies, and 
would give us protection, friendship, growth, and ad- 
vancement." 

To think, with Franklin, was, as you know, to act= As 
he travelled, he wrote down just the plan of union and 
government he would like to see. He brought it before 
the Colonial Congress of Commissioners at Albany, and 
was proud enough when his plan was unanimously ac- 
cepted and adopted. 

But when the matter was referred to England, as 
evervthin^r in the colonies had to be referred, the kinsf 
and his ministers "sat down on it," as vou sav, at once. 

" Why," they said, " it would never do to let the colo- 
nies unite. Some day they might get so strong that they 
would wish to govern themselves ; and that we will ne\'er 
allow." 

So Franklin's plan was not accepted. Another weak 
and unsatisfactory one was put in its place. But you know 
very well what came later. For Benjamin Franklin's plan 
of American union is now a part of the government under 
which we live, though the people of America and not the 
king of England rule as master; the president (just what 
Franklin suggested) is not appointed by the king of Eng- 
land, as Franklin proposed, but is elected bv the people ; 
and the council or assembly suggested by him is the 
Congress of the United States of America, the nation 
that grew out of Franklin's plan. 



96 J/O]]' HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

The dispute between Fmnce and England grew at last 
into open conflict. There was war between the nations 
in Europe and in America. In this land it became what 
you study about in your history under the name of the 
French and Indian W^ar. 

It resulted in the defeat of France, in the conquest of 
Canada, in making all North America English, in sho\\- 
ing the colonies that, together, they could be a power; 
and it brought to the front those great and noble men 
whom to-day w^e call the Fathers of the Republic, chief 
among whom were George Washington and Benjamin 
Franklin. 

The war in America threatened the destruction of the 
colonies. The French and their Indian allies came down 
to the Ohio. The Pennsylvania border was in danger. 
Young George Washington, as you may read in the story 
of his life, w^as sent to stop their advance, and, as you 
know, in a fight with the French invaders at Great 
Meadows in Western Pennsylvania, opened the long war 
that was to do so much toward making the American 
colonies united. 

England sent more soldiers. She sent a brave gen- 
eral to command them. But though a brave general he 
was a foolish one. You know his name and the day of 
his defeat and death. It is in all our history books — 
General Braddock. 

There was trouble about supplies for the soldiers ; 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY TOR THE EIRST TIME. 97 

there was trouble about transportation; there was trou- 
ble, too, because the Quaker assembly of Pennsylvania 
would not vote the money or supplies needed for the 
king's soldiers. 

General Braddock was very angry. He wished to talk 
things over with men in power in the colonies; for, he 
said, if I have come here to protect and 
defend them, they should be willino- to 
help. And so it came to pass that in 
^P^il' 1755^ the governor of New York, 
the governor of Massachusetts, and Post- 
master-General Franklin rode south into 
Maryland to meet and talk with the Brit- 
ish oreneral. (V»^l^^ 




GENERAL BRADDOCK 



Franklin explained matters to General 
Braddock, and showed him that the people of Pennsylvania 
were ready to help when the time came. Then, when he 
saw in what a tangle and trouble. the general was about 
the horses and wagons needed for getting the army 
supplies and the camp baggage out to the Ohio country, 
he at once offered to see that horses and wagons should 
be procured for the general. 

General Braddock was greatly pleased at this offer of 
help in his worries. He begged Franklin to trv and get 
the things he needed, and back into Pennsylvania rode the 
energetic postmaster-general to make good his promises. 

He did make them good. In his usual pleasant but 



98 BO IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TFME. 

determined way he roused the Pennsylvania farmers to the 
necessity of helping the British general ; and in twenty 
days after he had promised General Braddock to help 
him, he rode into the British camp at Frederick, in Mary- 
land, with one hundred and fifty farm wagons and two 
hundred and fifty pack horses, with all the hay and oats 
needed for them. That was business-like, was it not ? 

Again General Braddock was delighted. He praised 
and thanked '' Mr. Franklin," and wrote home to Ene- 
land about " the postmaster's fidelity and promptitude." 

Then Franklin, seeing that the army was liable to 
run short of provisions, offered to get stores of food and 
provisions from Pennsylvania. He kept his promise. 
Ample food and supplies were collected; and at last Gen- 
eral Braddock was ready to march into the Ohio country, 
whip the French, and conquer Canada. 

Franklin listened to all his big talk, and saw at once 
how little the British general knew of the rough forest 
land he was to enter, and the Indian way of fighting. 

He tried to reason with the general, and get him to 
move carefully and cautiously. But you know the story 
of General Braddock. You know how pig-headed and wil- 
ful he was, and how he kept his soldiers drilled and 
dressed as if they were to make a fancy parade along the 
streets of London. He would not be advised either by 
Franklin or by young Colonel George Washington, who 
also tried to argue him out of his plan. 



HO IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. OQ 

"What do you provincials know about real war?" he 
said. *' I'll show these French and Indians how a British 
general fights. I'll conquer them; don't you worry." 

So the army marched westward in splendid array, and 
Franklin went home to Philadelphia. 

But, soon after, came the news of that terrible disaster, 
familiar to you in your history lessons as " Braddock's 
defeat." The splendid British army was surprised, sur- 
rounded, and slaughtered. Braddock was killed ; and his 
army was only saved from destruction by the skill and 
bravery of Colonel George Washington, the despised 
" provincial." 

After that, who gained so much credit for advice and 
knowledge as wise "Mr. Franklin"? He was called into 
council by the governors ; he was asked for advice ; he 
was listened to eagerly ; and when a new army was gath- 
ered for the defence of the threatened Pennsylvania colony 
from the dreaded French and Indians, at its head marched 
its new commander, brave General Benjamin Franklin — 
for he was a general now. 

He drove the Indians off; he forced the French to the 
border; he built forts; he made the Pennsylvania border 
safe ; and then, after two months' soldiering, he went back 
again to his books and his study at Philadelphia, while 
all Philadelphia welcomed him home with gratitude and 
thanks and cheers. 

Then the governor begged him to take the field again, 



lOO ffOlV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY EOR THE FIRST TIME, 

and lead an army into the far Ohio country to the final 
defeat of the French, at their post at Fort Duquesne, 
where now stands the city of Pittsburgh. 



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WHERE FORT DUQUESNE STOOD IN FRANKLIN'S DAY. 

( Tlie Junction of the A UegJiany and Mottongahela Rivers at Pittsburgh. — Originally Fort Duquesne, next Fort Pitt, 

after titat Pittsburgh.') 

But Franklin knew just how much he was able to do. 
He said that he was not the man for that job; it needed 
a real soldier, and he was no soldier, he said. " I can serve 
you better in some other way," he told the people. 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNIRY FOR THE FIRST TIME. lOI 

He did. He took his seat in the Assembly, of which 
he was a member, and tried to strengthen the colony by 
fixing up matters — for, you see, there was a lot of trouble 
between the people of Pennsylvania and their obstinate 
governor, their still more obstinate '' proprietors," the Penn 
family, and the most obstinate one of all, the king of 
England. 

It was the hardest kind of \\ork. There was one con- 
tinual and many-sided quarrel. No one wished to do as 
the others desired. At last the Assembly said that the 
only way to settle things was to send over to England 
some man who knew the colonists' side of the storv, who 
knew about their rights and their needs, and who could 
tell the Penn family and the king to their faces just what 
the colony of Pennsylvania needed, just what were their 
rights in the matter, and just what they must have. 

There was only one man who could do this. You know 
him — Benjamin Franklin! 

In the spring of 1757 Franklin sailed to England as 
the agent of Pennsylvania, to plead the cause of his fel- 
low-colonists. That w^as quite a change, was it not, from 
that day when, years before, he had landed in England a 
poor, friendless, forlorn young printer, the dupe and sport 
of a former governor of the very colony which now he 
came to represent at the court of the king. 

His task was no easy one. Somehow, the work given 
him to do was always hard. Perhaps that was why he 



I02 ffOlV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TUfE. 

liked to "tackle" it — for Franklin, you know, always liked 
to work out hard problems. 

But he kept at it, talking, arguing, arranging ; and after 
five years of keeping at it, he finally succeeded in getting 
the best of the selfish Penn family, and arranging matters 
to the satisfaction of the colony. 

Then he went home. But he had done so well that 
his colony wished him to try again. This time they 
wanted to get clear of the Penns altogether; they wanted 
Pennsylvania to be a province just like Massachusetts and 
New York and other colonies. 

Franklin knew this would be a hard fight. But he 
declared himself ready to try if the people said he must; 
and off to England he sailed once more, in the year 1764, 
to again plead the cause of his countrymen before the 
king of England and his high and mighty ministers. The 
printer was in great demand, you see. 



HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 103 



. CHAPTER VI. 

HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 

I SUPPOSE I ought to turn back in my story now, and 
tell you about the other side of Franklin's life. For 
there was another side. You would think as you read 
of all that he did for his colony and country that this 
would have taken up all his time. But, do you know, it 
is the busy man who can best find time to do things. 
The lazy man never has time to do anything, or else he 
acts like the boy who read Franklin's motto the wrong 
way : " Never do to-day what you can put off till to- 
morrow." If you ever want anything done, ask the man 
who has too much to do, not the man who has nothing 
to do. 

It was just this way with Benjamin Franklin. You 
remefnber, do you not, how he made time for reading and 
study when he was an apprentice, by saving half his 
dinner hour ? That was his way all through life — he 
was always saving time to be spent in some other work 
than his regular occupation. 

In this way, you know, he studied arithmetic and 
grammar while he was a hard-worked apprentice ; in this 



I04 HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 

way he made time to write those anonymous contribu- 
tions to his brother's paper, when lie had scarcely an 
hour he could call his own. And, in the same way, as 
he grew older, he found time, even when he was busiest, 
to do some improving work, some helpful act, some public 
benefit, or to think out some invention of worth and 
value. 

I don't believe he ever wasted a moment ; and yet he 
got as much fun out of life as the laziest lord in Europe, 
and really kept himself young by his jokes, his songs, 
and his comradeship with the host of pleasant people who 
liked and loved him. For Benjamin Franklin was what 
we call a lovable man. 

On a sea voyage he would study the velocity of the 
waves, observe the habits of crabs and water-folk, or the 
sea-fowl that fluttered about the masts; on his walks he 
would look into the life and doings of ants and insects. 
He worked out the course and coming of the northeast 
storms, and was, in fact, the first "Old Probabilities," or 
American weather bureau. 

When he was setting up type in Philadelphia, you 
remember, he found time to start his pet debating society, 
the "Junto;" and his interest in this led him into many 
other plans for self-help and mutual improvement. He 
started a library, an academy, a hospital, and a philo- 
sophical society, all of which are in existence in Philadel- 
phia to this day. He advanced the security and pros- 



HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 



105 



perity of the city by giving to it a police force, a fire 
department, a militia regiment, clean streets, pavements, 
sidewalks, and street crossings. He introduced to his 
countrymen the yellow willow, from which, in no small 
measure, so much of our willow and wicker work is 




THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL, FOUNDED BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN 1752. 

made; the broom corn, for our whisk and house brooms; 
and the idea of fertilizing farmland by powdering it with 
plaster of Paris — the beginning of the vast fertilizing 
business that has so helped our farmers. 

When it was feared that so many wood-fires (there 



I06 HOJV HE BECAME DR. ERANKLIN. 

was no such thing then known as coal, you see) would 
kill out or use up the forest trees, he studied out a new 
way to heat houses, and invented an iron stove for burn- 
ing wood and not wasting it. This stove, named from him 
the Franklin stove, was in use for many, many years, — 
I know of some in use to-day. And this was really the 
beginning of the great stove-manufacturing industry of 
America. 

The governor of Pennsylvania recognized the great 
value of this new idea, and offered to get out a patent 
on it in Franklin's name, so that the inventor could have 
the benefit and profit of its manufacture. But Franklin 
declined. " I got that up for the benefit of the public," 
he said, "and we who enjoy the advantages of the inven- 
tions of others should be glad of an opportunity to serve 
others by any invention of our own ; and this we should 
do freely and generously." 

So he gave the invention to his countrymen. But an 
iron manufacturer in London was not so generous or kind- 
hearted. He saw a chance to make money; so he set to 
work to copy and make the Franklin stove, took out a 
patent on it for himself, and made himself rich by its 
manufacture. The world, you see, is made up of all sorts 
of people. Some are like Franklin — and some are not! 

Eager to study into any new thing, Franklin was at 
once interested in the subject of electricity, that newly 
discovered force in nature which, about the year 1740, was 



HO IV HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN: 107 

attracting the attention of the scientific men all over the 
world. It was not really a new discovery — scarcely any- 
thing is really new, you know ; but though learned men 
had known of the mysterious power from early times, no 
one could understand, explain, study, or capture it. 

To-day it is scarcely even a wonder to you. It lights 
your streets and houses, draws you along without horses 
in car or carriage, helps you to talk with people miles 
away, and sends all around and over the earth the news 
of each day's happenings. We have only just begun to 
learn its value, its power, and its possibilities ; but it has 
already become one of the greatest aids to man, and for 
this the world is largely indebted to the enterprise, the in- 
genuity, and the daring of Benjamin Franklin. 

He tried all sorts of experiments, he ran all sorts of 
risks, in order to find out more about it. You know how 
dangerous electricity is, even now, to those who understand 
it. In Franklin's day to trifle with it was like playing 
with matches around a barrel of gunpowder or drumming 
the rat-tat-too upon a keg of dynamite. Those are both 
rather risky, you know. 

But in the interest of science Franklin was ready to 
take risks — and he did. He killed turkeys by electricity, 
let himself be knocked down by electric shocks simply to 
be able to know and explain how it felt ; he made electric 
games, played electric jokes, had his house ringing with 
electric bells much to the distress of his good wife; he 



I08 HOir HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 

tried electricity on sick people, he tried it on well people, 
until, at last, by the experiment of the kite and the in- 
vention of lightning rods, he passed from playing with it 
to doino- with it, and at once attracted the attention of 
men of science all over the world. 

You have read the kite story, I suppose. It was the 
way in which Franklin discovered that lightning was 
electricity. 

It was in the summer of 1752. Franklin had thought 
and studied over the question until he had come to believe 
that lightning was electricity, and he thought if he could 
only get up into a thunder cloud he would prove it. 

But there were no balloons handy ; there was no high 
hill in the vicinity of Philadelphia; there was not a single 
church spire in all the town. If there had been anything 
of this sort — anything at all like the high buildings that 
are now^ plentiful enough in Philadelphia — he would have 
rigged up an elevated stand on it, run out his piece of 
sharpened wire and waited for a low-sailing, thunder cloud 
to pass over it, and if there were electricity in it, to send 
its fire down the pointed wire, — that was his first idea of 
the lightning rod, you see. 

But there was- no high point in Philadelphia, — neither 
hill, nor roof, nor spire. So it became a case like the old 
saying : If the mountain won't come to Mahomet, Ma- 
homet must go to the mountain. "If the thunder clouds 
can't come down to me," said Franklin, " I'll go up to the 




" HE TOUCHED HIS KNUCKLE TO THE HANGING KEY." 
{See page 113.) 



HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. Ill 

clouds." And so he made his famous kite. He made 
the frame of two strips of cedar in the shape of a cross, 
and covered this frame with a large thin silk handker- 
chief; for the thin silk, he knew, would stand the wind 
and rain wdiere paper would soak and tear, and cloth 
WQuld be too heavy. He rigged to the kite a tail, loop, 
and string, and then fastened at the top of the upright 
stick of the cross a long piece of sharp, pointed wire, 
sticking out a foot or more above the kite. To the end 
of the kite-string he tied a piece of silk ribbon. This 
he held in his hand, and from the point where the silk 
ribbon was tied to the string he hung a big door-key. 

Then one day, when it looked as if a thunder-storm 
were certain to come up, he and his son William, a stout, 
manly young fellow of twenty or twenty-one, stole out of 
their house, carrying the kite, and hurried off into the 
open country outside the town. They went as quietly 
as possible ; for Franklin did not wish any one to know 
of his experiment, and I suspect his son did not wish 
any of the girls to see him, for fear they would make fun 
of " Billie Franklin " and his father going off to fly a kite 
in a thunder storm, just like two foolish little boys. 

Very near to where stands to-day the vast City Hall 
of splendid Philadelphia they raised the kite ; but, to 
keep both himself and the silk ribbon dry, Franklin stood 
just inside the doorway of a big cowshed that stood near 
by. Then they waited anxiously for the thunder-cloud. 



I 12 



HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 



The kite flew finely and pulled hard, but the thunder 
clouds played off. One cloud passed over the kite ; an- 
other covered it ; but there was no electricity in them. 
At last, just as the experimenter was about to give it up, 




WHERE FRANKLIN FLEW THE KITE. 
{The great City BuUdiiig of Fhiladelphia, at Broad and Market Streets.) 

another black cloud swept across the silken kite. Sud- 
denly Franklin's brave heart gave a leap ; the fibres on 
his hempen kite string, which he w^as watching so intently, 
began to move and rise, and, at last, stood out "seven 
ways for Sunday," as my grandmother used to say — that 



HO IF HE BECAME DK. FRANKLIN I I 3 

is, every way. He touched his knuckle to the hanging 
key. Zip! came a spark, tingling and stinging. Zip! zip! 
came another and yet another as he knuckled the key 
again and again. 

"I've proved it, Billie," he said triumphantly to his 
son. The wetter the kite string became the heavier was 
it charged with electricity, and then, connecting the key 
with a sort of storage battery, which they had brought, 
— called a Leyden jar — they had all the electricity they 
needed, and both the father and son took from it the 
most satisfying shock a philosopher could desire, — one 
that nearly knocked them over. 

Then Franklin pulled in the silken kite and went 
back home through the rain proud and triumphant; for 
he had proved his theory. He had brought lightning 
down from heaven ; he had shown that he was right, — 
lightning was electricity! Now he could go to work, and 
by setting up his- lightning rods, show people how to 
save both property and lives by putting into effect his 
own proverb that '* an ounce of prevention is worth a 
pound of cure." 

To day, if you go to Philadelphia, you can see on 
the grounds of the great University of Pennsylvania, the 
school that Franklin founded, a splendid statue of Frank- 
lin and his kite. It is the very one that stood before the 
door of the beautiful and wonder-filled electricity building 
at the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893, in Chicago, 



114 



HO IV HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 



— a display of marvels and of magical assistants which 
were largely due to the pluck and perseverance and brain 
of Benjamin Franklin in that Philadelphia cow-shed, one 
hundred and forty years before the Great Chicago Expo- 
sition. 




THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, FOUNDED BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
(/« front of this stands tlie " Chicago Statue" of Franklin and his kite.) 

From the kite Franklin quickly passed to the invention 
of the lightning rods, which he soon after made and set up 
on his own and other houses. They were sharply-pointed 
iron rods running from the roofs or highest points of 
buildings to the ground. The electricity-filled clouds of 



HO W HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. I 1 5 

a thunder storm, in passing over buildings thus protected, 
would have their electricity drawn by these pointed rods, 
and along the rods into the ground, thus saving the house 
from the frightful chance of being struck by lightning. 

These two experiments ending so successfully were 
written out by Franklin, and soon found their way to all 
the other students of electricity and all the learned people 
of the world. At once the reputation of Franklin as a 
philosopher and man of science became very great. When 
he went to Boston on his post-office business, Harvard 
College, which you remember he had so " pitched into " in 
his boyish " newspaper piece," gave him what is called an 
honorary degree, making him A. M., " Master of Arts," 
for his work in behalf of science. Yale College in New 
Haven did the same thing; and, when he went across the 
sea to England as the agent for Pennsylvania, he found 
that his fame had gone ahead of him. There the great 
university of St. Andrews in Scotland made him an LL.D., 
"Doctor of Laws;" and the famous University of Oxford 
in England made him a D.C.L., " Doctor of Civil Law." 

Thus he became Doctor Franklin. Thus, at fifty, Ben- 
jamin Franklin, the candle-maker's son, the runaway ap- 
prentice, the hungry, friendless printer, — who had left 
school at ten, and wdiose only education had been what 
he had taught himself, — found himself renowned by the 
great schools, societies, and colleges of Europe and Amer- 
ica, receiving from them honors that princes could not 



ii6 



HO IV HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 



attain, but which really honored those who gave even 
more than it did him who received them. The Boston 
boy was now the best known American in all the world. 




PHOTOGRAPHED BY BALDWIN COOLIDGE. 



FRANKLIN AND THE LIGHTNING. 
{Bronze Bas-relief on the base of Greenoitgh'' s Statue of Franklin, in front of City Hall, Boston.") 



But, while he had been so busy with hand and brain 
all these years, finding out strange new things and using 
his discoveries for the advancement of science and the 
good of mankind. Doctor Franklin had also been Teacher 



HO IV HE BECAME DR. ERANKLIN. II7 

F^ranklin, educating his countrymen into habits of economy, 
thoughtfulness, and self-help. 

In "Poor Richard's Almanac" of which I have told 
you, among things to make folks laugh and things to 
make them think, among recipes, and rules for health, 
were many wise and witty sayings which have become 
world-famous, and which even the boys and girls of to-day 
use in their talk without ever thinking who it was that 
first said them. Along with these, too, Franklin wrote 
many other short, bright, sensible things which, as they 
thought them over, opened the eyes of his fellow-Ameri- 
cans to their rights as men and their privileges as citizens, 
home-builders, and money-getters. 

Their ancestors, in the old world across the sea, had 
been brought up to think that those in power were of bet- 
ter blood or nobler nature than themselves. But in the 
freer air of the new world, where they had to depend upon 
themselves, they began to think differently, especially as 
they read and pondered Poor Richard's sayings. 

"Worth makes the man," Poor Richard told them, 
" Knowledge is power," "A stitch in time saves nine." 

" Be industrious and free ; be frugal and free," he said ; 
and, in his own rules of conduct, Franklin had thus asked 
for Heaven's aid: "Help me to be faithful to my country, 
careful for its good, valiant for its defence, and obedient 
to its laws." As he taught himself, so he taught others; 
and as " Poor Richard " or as " Father Abraham," under 



I 1 8 HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. 

both of which names he wrote his maxims and advice 
for his fellow-Arnericans, he did all this so simply and 
yet so strongly that his words sank deep into the hearts 
of the people, and educated them, even though they knew 
it not, in habits of economy, self-help, and independence. 

In hundreds of humble homes in America, as I have 
already told you, but two books were known or in daily 
use, — the Bible and "Poor Richard's Almanac;" and from 
both, fathers and sons and mothers and daughters learned 
to depend upon God and upon themselves for help, for 
strength, and for character. When you keep hearing 
things told and retold, what you thus hear becomes almost 
a part of yourself. So these wise and thrifty maxims of 
Poor Richard's, repeated by father or mother, would not 
be forgotten by the children. His words did more to 
make the people of America think for themselves, and act 
for themselves when the time came, than all the speeches 
of all the orators. Indeed, one historical writer tells us 
that the battles of the American Revolution could not 
have been fought between 1775 and 1783 if "Poor Rich- 
ard's Almanac" had not been published from 1732 to 1758. 
The people had been schooled by him to endurance, pa- 
tience, manliness, economy, and helpfulness. 

So you see, while the colleges and the learned socie- 
ties of Europe gave him, at fifty, his degree and title of 
Doctor Franklin because he had found out and had done 
so much, the American people had long followed him. 



HOW HE BECAME DR. FRANKLIN. II9 

even without thinking that it was Franklin who was 
their leader, teacher, and guide. 

They had even gone ahead of their leader ; for while 
in the first years of his residence in England, Franklin 
advised loyalty to the king and submission to the decrees 
of Parliament, the people of America, as the pupils of the 
man who had set them to thinking, had passed beyond 
his caution. They were determined that neither king nor 
parliament should impose upon them by unjust laws or 
selfish decrees. They were becoming each day more inde- 
pendent, more self-reliant. 

Others followed where Franklin had led. With his 
words as a text, they talked to the people ; and their argu- 
ments and appeals set alight the flame of liberty, which 
grew stronger and brighter as the " masters " in England 
became more obstinate and tyrannical. 

Then, at last, the flame burst into a mighty blaze that 
lighted the path of America to union, to independence, and 
to greatness, and gave to the world so bright a beacon 
light of liberty that kings and princes heeded the warn- 
ing; and to-day liberty and justice live in all lands be- 
cause of America's story. And this advance of the people 
was largely due to the wisdom and the teachings of Dr. 
Benjamin Franklin, philosopher and patriot. 



I20 HOJV BE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 




CHAPTER VII. 

HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 

HEN Franklin reached England on his second 

mission as agent for the colony of Pennsylvania, 

he found the king and his ministers bent on a 

piece of work that was to cost England, before she was 

through, a million times more than she hoped to make by 

it. This was known as the Stamp Act. 

The war with France had cost a great deal of money. 
France had been whipped ; but for every war in which a 
nation indulges the nation must pay. 

So, to help England meet the cost of the war, the min- 
isters of King George said the American colonies must 
pay their share. To pay this share they proposed to put 
a tax on everything the Americans used. This tax was 
in the form of stamps ; and a tax or revenue stamp, much 
like a postage stamp, had to be stuck on everything that 
was thus taxed. Fifty-four different classes of objects 
were thus taxed, and in one way or another it affected 
almost every man, woman, or child in America. 

Now, although the people of the colonies had paid 
dearly for that terrible war with France in money, men, 



HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 121 



and suffering, they did not object to pay a reasonable share 
of the expenses, even if it were in the form of a tax; but 
they did object to being taxed and having no right to 
say how the money thus 
raised should be spent. 
They had grown tired of 
having England speak 
of them as "subjects," of 



raTiiTiiir" 



Tf 



>-r% 



having the king of Eng- 
land spoken of as their 
master, of having neither 
A^oice nor vote in the 
matter of how much 
money England should 
take from America, and 
for what she should 
spend it. 

They began to grum- 
ble. " No taxation with- 
out representation," they 
said. " Give us a voice, 
a seat in parliament, a 

vote — something to show that we are Englishmen and 
not slaves, and we will join hands and help you out. But 
the tax you propose, and the way you propose to collect 
and use it, we simply will not agree to." 

And so this strong feeling against British tyranny 




FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON. 
{One of t!u places in which the Colonies protested.) 



122 HO IV HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 

grew into what you read of in your history as America's 
protest. For they were beginning, across the water, to 
feel the strength and truth of one of Franklin's sayings : 
" Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." 

Franklin arrived in England just as the hated Stamp 
Act was being considered by the king and his ministers. 
His mission to relieve Pennsylvania of the rule of the 
Penn family was, therefore, of much less importance than 
the question of taxing the colonies. 

Some of the other American colonies had agfents or 
representatives in England. Franklin talked with them ; 
and it was decided to see and reason with the chief of 
the king's councillors, the prime minister as he was called. 
Perhaps, they said, we may bring him to see the injus- 
tice of this Act, and prevent it from becoming a law. 

Franklin had already, at home and in England, spoken 
strongly against this unreasonable Stamp Act. ''It is the 
very mother of mischief," he declared. " If the king says 
we must pay it, we are still the good subjects of his 
majesty, and may do as he requires. But it will be the 
beginning of trouble, and will be a great mistake on the 
part of King George and his ministers." 

So the agents of the colonies went to see the prime 
minister. They talked earnestly to him, and tried to get 
him to favor some other means of raising money, or, at 
least, to give the colonies some kind of a say about the 
money that England wished them to raise. 



HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 



123 



But the prime minister would scarcely listen to them. 

" The Stamp Act is the only thing that can help us 
out," he said, " and the colonies must pay it. That is all 
there is about it. How much it shall be, how it shall be 
raised, and how it shall be spent, is for the Parliament 
to decide. You Americans have really nothing to say 
about the matter." 

So the Stamp Act was passed, in spite of the protests 
of the colonies and their agents. England made a mighty 
mistake ; and a blow was struck at America's loyalty to 
the king which led the colonies to strike back and, at 
last, to break out into open rebellion. 

Franklin then did not think it would go so far. But 
he had worked hard to prevent the passage of the Act. 

"I took every step in my power," he said, ''to prevent 
the passing of the Stamp Act. But the tide was too 
strong against us. The nation was provoked by Ameri- 
can claims of legislative independence ; and all parties 
joined in resolving, by this Act, to settle the point." 

But the opposition in America was even stronger than 
he imagined. It not only called the government of Eng- 
land hard names, but it also did the same to the agents 
of the colonies. Franklin's Pennsylvania, for whom he 
had labored so long and unselfishly, said he might have 
stopped the Act if he had only tried hard; and a riotous 
mob in Philadelphia frightened his wife, and threatened 
to burn his house. 



124 HOW BE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 

When the news of the way America felt reached him 
in England, and he saw that the opposition might lead to 
something stronger than words, he understood how people 
so many miles apart might not be able to understand one 
another. Neither America nor England understood each 
other. England thought America was what you boys call 
"too fresh;" America thought England to be, what you 
boys also call "too bossy." Do you understand the situ- 
ation from these boyish comparisons? You see it was 
just like the story of young Ben Franklin and sulky 
brother James. Half the trouble in the world might be 
saved if people would only try to understand one another. 

So Franklin, in his wisdom, did his best to make Eng- 
land see just how America felt about the Stamp Act, and 
to get her to be just toward her restless young daughter 
across the sea. 

"The Stamp Act must be repealed," he said, "or Eng- 
land will be the loser." 

To repeal, you know, means to call back. It undoes a 
thing already done. If Parliament said, "We'll take that 
back ; you need not pay that stamp tax," Franklin felt 
that the trouble might be cured, although he was afraid 
that England had gone too far. So he wrote, he talked, he 
argued, and he labored. He told the English people that 
if they persisted in putting this tax upon commerce, they 
would lose far more than they hoped to gain. For, he 
told them that, rather than pay the stamp tax, the Ameri- 



NOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. I 25 

cans would give up buying English goods. In that way, 
the things taxed not being bought, there would be no 
money received from America in the way of taxes or in 
payment for the things that England had been supply- 
ing. At the same time, he also warned them, if the 
Americans once got in the way of making their own 
clothes and manufacturing their own goods, England 
would have no market in America for the goods she had 
always supplied before. 

And so it proved. Rather than pay the tax, the Amer- 
icans gave up buying English goods. They spun their 
own wool, made their own clothes and their own furni- 
ture, and did without many, many things they desired and 
needed. The merchants in England who sent and sold 
goods to America became frightened. 

''This tax is ruining us," they said. "It is stopping 
our business ; it is doing no good either to England or 
America. Repeal it ; Repeal it ! " they cried. 

The leading men in England began to see that a mis- 
take had been made. They thought it best to look into 
the matter carefully and see just what could be done. 

Among other things they called the agents of the colo- 
nies before the parliament, and questioned them about the 
feeling in America. They looked upon Franklin as the one 
who knew the most about this; and so they summoned 
him to appear before the parliament on a certain day, and 
let that whole company of English lawmakers know just 



126 HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 

what he thought about the Stamp Act, and what the 
Americans wished. 

This is what is known in history as the examination 




"they spun their own wool, and did without many things they needed." 

of Franklin. It was a great scene. It was on the 3d of 
July, 1766, just ten years before the day when a great 
event was to happen across the ocean in America. 

Within a narrow chamber in stately Westminster Hall, 



HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. I 27 

known as St. Stephen's Chapel — an old, old room built 
in the days of the Norman kings of England, — the 
House of Commons was assembled, presided over by its 
chief officer, called the Speaker. 

Before that famous assembly of the " lords and gen- 
tlemen " of England, there came a hale and hearty man 
of sixty, stout, pleasant-faced, big every way. He wore a 
plain but rich suit of Manchester velvet — big coat, long 
vest, knee breeches, stockings, and low shoes with big 
silver buckles. He wore a long wig, and carried a cane 
and a big three-cornered hat. 

He stood there before them for hours, answering all 
questions thrown at him by friend and foe — for in that 
crowded House of Commons he had both friend and foe. 

That stout man in the velvet suit was Benjamin 
Franklin, the American, standing, on behalf of his coun- 
trymen, an examination in regard to the odious Stamp 
Act which the same parliament of England had fastened 
upon overburdened America. 

The questions came thick and fast ; but the answers 
were ready, brief, and straight to the point. He never 
hesitated for a reply, never faltered in an opinion. It 
was worse than one of your dreaded examinations in 
school ; but Franklin was so well prepared that, as one 
who saw and heard him declared, the examination was 
*' much like a master examined by a parcel of schoolboys " 
— and vou know how that would be, do you not? 



128 HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 

Every answer given by Franklin, so another man who 
was present on that singular examination-day declared, 
" was always found equal, if not superior, to the ques- 
tion ; " and one of Franklin's biographers, going carefully 
over the whole affair, tells us that Franklin's examination 
''instructed England and thrilled America," — for you may 
be sure that, in due time, his countrymen in America heard 
all about it. 

Let us take a seat here, on the steps to the Speaker's 
platform, and listen to just a few of these questions and 
answers. 

"Don't you know, Mr. Franklin, that the money from 
the stamp tax is all to be laid out in America?" asks one 
member. 

" I know," answers Franklin, '* that it is appropriated 
by the act to the American service; but it will be spent 
in the conquered colonies where the soldiers are, — not in 
the colonies that pay it." 

" Do you not think the people of America would sub- 
mit to pay the stamp duty if it were moderated ? " 

"No, never; unless compelled by force of arms." 

"What was the temper of America toward Great Brit- 
ain before the year 1763?" 

" The best in the world. They had not only a respect, 
but an affection, for Great Britain. To be an ' Old Eng- 
land ' man was of itself a character of some respect, and 
gave a kind of rank among us." 



? > 




HO IV HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 131 

"And what is their temper now?" 

"Oh, very much altered," says Franklin emphatically. 

" In what light did the people of America use to con- 
sider this Parliament of Great Britain?" 

"They considered the Parliament as the great bulwark 
and security of their liberties and privileges, and always 
spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration." 

" And have they not still the same respect for Par- 
liament? " 

" No," again Franklin answers emphatically, almost 
sternly; "it is greatly lessened." 

"Don't you think the Americans would submit to the 
Stamp Act if it were modified ? " 

"No, sir; they will never submit to it," says Franklin. 

" How would the Americans receive a future tax of 
the same nature as the Stamp Act?" 

"Just as they do this," is the reply. "They will never 
pay it." 

" Have you not heard of the resolutions of Parliament 
asserting their rights toward America, including a power 
to tax the people there ? " 

"Yes sir; I have heard of such resolutions," Franklin 
admits. 

" What will be the opinion of the Americans on these 
resolutions ?" 

And Franklin answers promptly, " they will think them 
unconstitutional and unjust." 



132 HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 

** Suppose we should lay a tax on the necessities of 
life imported into your colony?" 

" I do not know a single article," replies Franklin boldly, 
*' imported into the northern colonies that they cannot do 
without or make themselves." 

There is a stir in the throng; this answer greatly sur- 
prises them. 

"Why, Mr. Franklin," exclaims one member; "don't 
you think cloth from England absolutely necessary to 
the Americans? " 

"No, sir; by no means," Franklin replies. "With 
industry and good management the Americans can very 
well supply themselves with all they want." 

"Why!" they ask in surprise, "will it not take a long 
time to establish the cloth manufacture among them ? 
Must they not in the mean time suffer greatly?" 

Franklin glances at his own fine velvet suit. " I think 
not," he answers smilingly. " The Americans have made 
a surprising progress already." He waits an instant ; 
then he adds, meaningly, "And, sir, I am of the opinion 
that before their old clothes are worn out, they will have 
new ones of their own making." 

The Parliament rather doubts this. They have been 
brought up to think that America cannot do without Eng- 
lish clothes, and they try to corner Franklin on the wool 
question. But they cannot; so his questioners go back 
to the Stamp Act. 



HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 1 33 

"Do you think, Mr. Franklin, that if the Stamp Act 
is repealed, the Americans will be satisfied ? " 

" I believe they will," Franklin answers honestly. 

'' But is not Parliament the judge as to the right of 
doing things which occasion demands ? " asks one mem- 
ber, who does not like this American way of settling 
things. 

"Though the Parliament may judge of the occasion," 
is Franklin's reply, " the people will think it can never 
exercise such right till representatives from the colonies 
are admitted into Parliament ; and they will think, too, 
that whenever the occasion does arise, representatives will 
be ordered." 

The Englishman does not like this tone, but he can 
not change it with all his questioning; and we Americans, 
sitting on the steps, grow quite excited. 

"Well, Mr. Franklin," another member inquires, "can 
anything less than a military force carry the Stamp Act 
into execution ? " 

And Franklin quietly replies, " I do not see how a 
military force can be applied to that purpose." 

His questioner is surprised. "Why! why not?" he 
demands. 

" Suppose a military force sent into America," Frank- 
lin makes answer; "they will find nobody in arms. What 
are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take 
these stamps if he chooses to do without them. They 



134 



HOW HE FACED 2 HE PARLIAMEXT OF EXGLAXD. 



will not find a rebellion. But," he adds meaningly, " they 
may make one." 

And this, do you know, is precisely what the English- 
men did. In the 
American re\-olution 
the Americans were 
right ; the British 
broke their own 
laws, and were there- 
fore the real rebels. 
**If the Act is not 
repealed," some one 
asks Franklin, "what 
do you think will be 
the consequence?" 

" A total loss of 
the respect and affec- 
tion the people of 
America bear to Eng- 
land." replies Frank- 
lin, ''and." he adds, 
"of all the commerce 
that depends upon that respect and affection." 

" Supposing the Stamp Act continued and enforced," now 
comes the question; "do you imagine that ill-humor will in- 
duce the Americans to o-ive as much for worse manufactures 
of their own, and use them instead of our better ones?" 




EDMUND EURKE, THE FRIEND OF AMERICA, WHO SPOKZ. .. 
ARGUED THE CAUSE OF THE COLONIES IN PARLIAMENT. 



HOW HE FACED THE PARLIAMEXT OF EXGLASD. 135 

"Yes, sir, I think so," says Franklin, the philosopher; 
*• for, vou know, people will pay as ireely to gratify one 
passion as another — their resentment as their pride." 

"If the Stamp Aet should be repealed, would not the 
Americans think they could oblige the Parliament to re- 
peal every tax law now in lorce?" asks one rather sus- 
picious member; and Franklin, the shrewd, replies, — 

" It is hard to answer questions oi what peo}de at 
such a distance will think."" 

*' Can we. at this distance." another inquires, be com- 
petent judges oi what fa\-ors to America are neces- 
sary ? " 

"Your Parliament." answers Franklin, "have supposed 
that they were by clainiing a right to make tax laws for 
America. But I think it impossible." 

" If the Stamp Act should be repealed. Mr. Fraid^lin. 
would it induce the asseiublies o\ America to acknowl- 
edge the rights oi Parliament to tax them, and would 
they erase their resolutions against us ? "' 

"No. sir. ne\'er!"" savs Franklin stoutlv. 

"Are there no means oi obliging them to erase those 
resolutions?" comes the signiticant inquirw 

" None that I know oi. They will never Ao it. unless 
compelled bv force oi arms." 

*' Is there a power o\\ earth." persists the (.|uestioner. 
"that can force theni to erase them?" 

And Franklin answers grandh' : " No power, howso- 



136 HO IV HE FACED THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 

ever great," he says, " can force men to change their 
opinions." 

"Well, Mr. Franklin," says one member, thinking to 
get a little fun out of the philosopher, " what used to be 
the pride of the Americans ? " 

And Franklin quickly responds, " To indulge in the 
fashions and manufactures of Great Britain." 

" And what is now their pride ? " the same questioner 
asks; to which stout Mr. Franklin answers like a flash, — 
" To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make 
new ones." 

" That will do, sir," says Mr. Fuller, the chairman of 
the Inquiry Committee, and the Speaker nods. " Mr. 
Franklin, you are excused from further attendance." 

Whereupon he retires; and we young Americans march 
away from the Speaker's steps, very certain that the Par- 
liament of England did not get the better of "our Mr. 
Franklin." 

Of course, I have given you but a few of the ques- 
tions and answers in that famous examination. I have 
before me, as I write, the complete affair. The exami- 
nation fills page upon page of a good-sized book. Never 
once does Franklin falter. His answers are all as simple, 
direct, and vigorous as those you have read abov^e. 

The Parliament of England certainly did not get the 
better of "our Mr. Franklin." Six days after his examina- 
tion the hated Stamp Act w^as repealed; it was no longer 



HO IV HE FOUGH2' THE TAX TYRANTS. 



137 



a law ; and for that victory for the colonies this wise, 
shrewd, and patriotic American was largely responsible. 

America went wild with joy. Bells rang and bonfires 
blazed. It was a great victory for justice and for right, 
and Benjamin Franklin was hailed in America as deliv- 
erer and champion. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

I NEVER heard such noise in my life," wrote Sally 
Franklin, in Philadelphia, to her father the doctor, in 
London ; *' the very children seem distracted." 

Of course America was joyful over the repeal of the 
Stamp Act; it was just what she wished, and there were 
bell-ringings and bonfires and cheers and processions. 

But all this did England no special good. England 
had heavy war debts; they must be paid, and America 
somehow must help to pay them — if not in one way, 
then in another. 

The king of England was George the Third. He was 
an honest and worthy gentleman, — an excellent father, a 
good king, as kings go, and a good man. But he had 
one defect and one fault, — he was stupid and he was 
obstinate. 



138 BOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

It made him very angry to have his royal will crossed 
by a lot of farmers, mechanics, and fishermen across the 
sea in America. He meant well ; he wished to do the 
best thing for England and America — 'especially for Eng- 
land. But he did not go to work right. He was too 
stupid to see the clear and only path of justice; and so 
he hurt England, and made America — though he never 
knew it. For George the Third of England possessed 
what one writer calls " the most terrible combination in 
the universe — ignorance and good intentions." A man 
may wish to do just the right thing, you know; but if 
he has not the sense to know what that right thing is, 
disaster and ruin are very apt to follow. 

Franklin did not at first understand King George. A 
cat may look at a king, you know, and so, too, may a phi- 
losopher; but the people near the throne took very good 
care that this shrewd and far-seeing American philosopher 
should not get a chance to see or talk with the king. 
He could never get beyond the Prime Minister — the 
king's head man. So Franklin supposed that it was Par- 
liament that was blocking the way and injuring America; 
he believed that KinQj- Geors^e was America's best friend. 

o o 

He thought, too, that the king was powerful, and could 
do whatever he desired. But he could not. George the 
Third was what is called a constitutional monarch ; he 
had to do just what certain laws, called the constitution 
of England, told him ; and he did not, in fact, have as 



HO IV HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 



139 



much to say as does now the President of the United 
States. But he could fret and fume ; and that is what 
he did after the repeal of the Stamp Act. 

So, until he really began to see through the king, 
Franklin w^as a loyal and willing subject of King George 
— ■ for an American. 
He disliked the idea 
of pow^er in any man 
which might become 
tyranny. He had 
known what that 
meant in his boyhood, 
you know, when sulky 
Brother James was his 
master. Indeed, he al- 
ways remembered that 
experience, and de- 
clared that he believed 
his brother's harsh and 
tyrannical treatment 
was really what had 

given him " that aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck 
to me through my whole life," — so he writes in the story 
of his life. 

So, when, after the repeal of the Stamp Act, Parlia- 
ment, spurred on by the king and his advisers, tried to 
think up some way to get even with the Americans and 




HE COULD NEVER GET BEYOND THE PRIME MINISTER — 
THE king's HEAD MAN." 



140 HO IV HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

to get some money from them, Franklin did some think- 
ing too. And his thoughts generally amounted to some- 
thing, you know. 

He wished to help England as well as America ; and 
as he pondered over the bigness of America he believed 
that, if the vast and splendid lands that lay between the 
Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi River could be 
colonized by England, it would so populate and improve 
that section that there would be no need for expensive 
forts and hungry armies, for the new colonists would be 
their own protectors, and save the frontiers from the French 
and Indians just as the Atlantic colonies had. For he 
had told Parliament in that famous examination that 
English soldiers did more harm than good in America, 
and that the Americans could protect themselves — as, in- 
deed, they had done. 

So he proposed to King George the immediate coloni- 
zation by English families of what was called the Illinois 
country, becoming, in this way, the first to suggest and 
attempt the extension of America into what afterwards 
became our great western states and territories. 

But though his plan was accepted, and a colonization 
company, of which he was a member, was formed, the 
ministers of King George opposed and speedily ruined it ; 
and our rich and mighty west was built up, not by kingly 
charter, but by the freemen of America after they had 
won liberty and manhood. 



HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 1 41 

The king and his parliament kept playing away at 
their one tune — England must pay her debt, and America 
must help her. They couldn't very well try the stamp 
plan again, so they proposed a new form of taxation for 
America. "It won't amount to much," they said; "only 
about two hundred thousand dollars ; but every little helps, 
and if we can start in with a little tax successfully, we'll 
manage to make it big enough in time." 

And so they proposed the tax on tea and a few other 
things that set America into a blaze of wrath again ; — 
not because their tea was taxed, but because, if they agreed 
to let England levy one tax, there was no telling how 
many taxes might be added. 

Franklin, of course, was clever enough to see all this 
at once. He wrote and talked vigorously against the 
plan. It was all wrong, he knew; and he also knew that 
the Americans would not willingly submit to it. 

" I have some little property in America," he said ; " and 
I will freely spend ninety-nine cents out of every dollar 
to defend my right of giving or refusing the other cent." 
It was a question of right with him, you see, and not 
of dollars. Then he added, "And if, after all, I cannot 
defend that right, I will retire cheerfully with my little 
family into the boundless woods of America, which are 
sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who 
can bait a hook or pull a trigger." That was plucky, was 
it not? It w^as precisely what Washington said when, a 



142 



HOJF HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 



few years after, some timid men despaired of ever free- 
ing America from the power of England by a successful 




WHERE THE BOSTON MASSACRE OCCURRED. 
{Infrotit 0/ the Old State House, Boston.) 



But, as you know very well, Franklin's advice and 
warnings were not heeded. Obstinate Kino- Georcre erew 



HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 1 43 

more obstinate ; Parliament grew more determined. The 
new tax was decided upon. 

The colonists in America protested, petitioned, almost 
rebelled. British soldiers were sent across the sea to awe 
the Americans into submission. Their presence enraged 
the colonists ; for the colonists were not yet Americans ; 
they were still Englishmen, and they would not be treated 
as slaves. 

In 1770 a street fight in New York, and another in 
Boston, known as the famous Boston Massacre, showed 
to England the temper of America. The tax was re- 
sisted. The tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbor; 
it was hustled out of the way in New York. Resistance 
grew into rebellion. Virginia backed up Massachusetts, 
and the Carolinas shook hands with New York. " No tax- 
ation without representation ! " was again shouted through 
the colonies. 

Franklin felt very badly over these things. He loved 
England ; he loved America. He felt that, if the obsti- 
nate King George and his wicked advisers would try to 
accommodate instead of angering America, all trouble 
might be avoided, and the colonists continue to be loyal 
and helpful supporters of the British crown. 

But he knew, too, that any tax laid upon America 
would be resented by them. Resistance, he knew, must 
lead, as it did, to open trouble, perhaps to armed re- 
bellion ; and he knew, also, that America was as yet 



144 ffOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

but poorly fitted to withstand the mighty power of Eng- 
land. 

Once again he made the effort to interest the mer- 
chants and working-people of England, who depended 
largely for their living upon the trade with America. As 
the repeal of the Stamp Act had been brought about by 
making the English people see the harm it would do to 
English trade, so, as he saw he could do nothing with 
the politicians, he tried once more to make the people 
see that America w^as right and England wrong. 

He wrote many letters to the newspapers ; he pub- 
lished many pamphlets ; he talked and argued well ; and 
he raised a strong party in favor of America. 

But it w^as Parliament, and not the people, who set- 
tled things. There were many men in Parliament who 
cared more for money and position than they cared for 
justice, right, and honor. Many of these, indeed, were 
really friendly to America; but they were still more anxious 
to look out for number one, to keep in with the party in 
power and with their master, the stubborn King George. 
Some of them, too, were bought up, by money or the 
promise of office, to side with the ministers; and so, when 
matters came at last to a crisis, and the question of a 
tax was voted upon in Parliament, the king's side carried 
the day, and won by a large majority. The taxing of 
America was determined upon. 

So Franklin found that his appeals and his arguments 



HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYJiANTS. 



145 



were of but little use. More than this ; he began to expe- 
rience once again in his life the insolence of tyranny. 

This grand old man found himself slighted, ignored, 
and insulted by those who were in power and who were 




" OBSTINATE KING GEORGE GREW MORE OBSTINATE." 

not worthy to stand in the presence of so great, so noble, 
and so wise a man. 

Soldiers fight in battle, boys and girls, and win great 
praise for glorious deeds, for courage and strength and 



146 HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

bravery. But it is easier to stand shoulder to shoulder 
with comrades on the battle-field than to stand alone, un- 
moved, amid insult and ill-treatment. It is easier to 
strike than to talk, — to face a foeman on the battle-field 
than in what is called, ''good society." It was this last 
battle that Franklin was called upon to fight. He did it 
manfully. He never faltered. When the chance came to 
speak, he spoke, and spoke grandly. He fought the tax 
tyrants in their own place, both with tongue and pen. 
But it is hard work rolling a stone up hill, and to con- 
vince England when England was determined not to be 
convinced w^as the hardest kind of work. 

Franklin's countrymen, however, approved his labors 
and honored his acts. And well they might. There was 
no man better able than he to fight for their rights in 
England. They knew this, and they piled yet more work 
upon his willing shoulders. He was, as you know, the 
agent for Pennsylvania, sent over the sea to look after 
her interests in England. In the year 1768 the colony 
of Georgia asked Franklin to act as her agent in England. 
New Jersey followed suit with a like request in 1769; 
and, in 1770, his native colony of Massachusetts appointed 
him its agent in England. 

Suppose any one had told the Boston boy, when he 
was building that wharf in the minnow marsh, or when 
that runaway apprentice w^as hiding in the boat to get 
away from Boston, that, years after, the stern Bay Colony 



HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 1 47 

of Massachusetts would ask him to stand before kings 
and parliaments as her most honored agent and repre- 
sentative ! He would hardly have thought it possible, 
would he? But a self-made man, you see, finds all honors 

open to him. 

In the midst of these varying honors and trials, there 
came to Franklin, pluckily waging his war with wrong, a 
crowning impertinence and insult from his English foes. 

Franklin had always supposed that the idea of forcing 
America into submission by sending soldiers across the 
sea had come from the Parliament, or from the English 
kine and his ministers. He had no idea that so wicked 
a proposition could come from America. But there are 
always two sides to every question, you know, and wrong 
has its supporters just the same as right. 

In America there were many people who believed that 
really the king could do no wrong, and so they blindly sup- 
ported whatever he might order. Of course the leaders 
of this class, called the Tories, were the royal governors 
and the men appointed to office in America by the king 
or his favorites. 

Franklin knew this; but he did not believe that these 
people, however blind and selfish they might be, would 
advise cruelty or war towards Americans. But, one day, 
an Englishman with whom he was talking, in order to 
prove that this was the fact, put into Franklin's hands a 
lot of letters which had been sent to England by the royal 



148 HOJV HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

governor of Massachusetts — himself an American, — and 
others in office — British and Tories. These letters showed 
who was stirring up opposition to the tax tyranny in 
America, and advised and begged the king to send a 
strong army to America to frighten the colonists into 
submission. 

I can tell you that made Franklin angry. He would 
not believe it at first ; but he had to when he saw^ the 
letters, and at once he sent them, or copies of them, to 
the leaders of the people in Boston. 

Then there was a great time ! The people of Massa- 
chusetts wrote at once to England, asking that these offi- 
cials, who were trying to ruin the province, be changed 
at once, and men put in their places who would try to 
help rather than distress the Americans. 

When the king's ministers knew about this they looked 
around for some one to blame, and of course they picked 
out Franklin as the man who had made the trouble by 
sending the tell-tale letters back to Boston. 

They summoned him before the council; and their hired 
lawyer, a man named Wedderburn, for several hours did 
all he could by low, mean, wicked, and insulting lan- 
guage to rouse Franklin to "talk back," and get him to 
say something, when angry, that would lead to his im- 
prisonment and punishment. 

But he did not know Benjamin Franklin. For, though 
the whole council joined in saying by their actions, their 



HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 



149 



laughter, and their applause, "Go ahead, Wedderburn! Hit 
him again! he has no friends here," Franklin stood before 
his tormentors cool, calm, and silent, answering never a 
word. It was a gentleman holding at bay by his dignity 
a pack of bullies. 





FRANKLIN AND WEDDERBURN. — "HE ANSWERED NEVER A WORD." 

He knew the intent of these so-called "gentlemen." 
He knew that the councillors of King George did not 
dare openly to arrest and punish him — the accredited 
agent of their colonies, the man they should have treated 
with courtesy and honor. He knew they meant to insult 
him and disgrace him, if they could, before all England; 



150 now HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

and, to such baseness, he knew very well, silence is the 
best and only manly reply. 

But this ungentlernanly treatment made those who were 
his friends still more friendly; it raised him yet higher in 
the esteem of his countrymen and of those in England 
who knew his real worth, and how easily he could have 
"downed" the insolent Wedderburn if he had wished to 
reply. 

One of these very Englishmen, a bright and witty 
man, saw this picture of "dignity and impudence," and 
wrote these lines: — 

" Sarcastic Sawney, swollen with spite and prate, 
On silent Franklin poured his venal hate. 
The calm philosopher, without reply, 
Withdrew — and gave his country liberty." 

It was a fine tribute to Franklin's manliness and cour- 
age, was it not ? 

But though silent under all this treatment, Franklin 
felt the insult keenly. For insult is always hard to bear. 
He wrote to a friend that " if he had not considered the 
thing for which he had been so much insulted as one of 
the best actions of his life, and one that, under the same 
circumstances, he should certainly do again, he could not 
have stood that impudent and abusive action." 

Two days after this outrageous treatment in the king's 
council, Franklin was deprived of his position as post- 
master-general of the American colonies. The king would 



HO IV HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 151 

listen to no reasoning ; he meant to punish his wisest 
and most honest supporter, the only man who had ever 
made the colonial post-office self-supporting. He deprived 
Franklin of his position ; he made the bully Wedderburn 
a judge and a peer of the realm. But the American post- 
office ran down, and began to lose money at once after 
Franklin's dismissal; George the Third lived to recognize 
Benjamin Franklin as the highest commissioner and rep- 
resentative of the American republic; and Wedderburn 
died without a friend or a follower, dismissed by his mas- 
ter, King George, with the words, " He has not left a 
worse man behind him." 

Sometimes, you see, even true stories do come out all 
right. The true story of Benjamin Franklin is one that did. 

But for a while everything looked dark. A man who 
did not look on the bright side and get the best out of 
everything, as did Franklin, would have given up in de- 
spair. He had been insulted and maligned; he had lost 
his best position ; the favorites and followers of King 
George went out of their w^ay to make things as unpleas- 
ant as possible for good Doctor Franklin ; the royal gov- 
ernors of the American colonies, whose agent he was in 
England, delayed or stopped his salary ; the Tories and 
king's men tried to have him arrested and imprisoned as 
a traitor; and even cool-headed and justice-loving English- 
men looked upon him as the chief cause of the trouble 
in the colonies. 



152 HOW HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 

This was enough to set any man to thinking that 
really he wasn't wanted, was it not? Franklin, although 
he had hosts of good friends in England, saw that the 
king and the king's men were bound to make things verv 
uncomfortable, and he began to get ready for a return to 
America. 

But just then word came across the sea to him that 
a Continental Congress in America was about to meet 
for debate and action, and he was asked to stay in Eng- 
land until he heard from the Congress. So he waited. 

And as he waited, unmoved by threat and unprovoked 
by insult, he kept up his work in behalf of a peaceful set- 
tlement, writing and talking to explain America's position, 
and begging honest Englishmen to pause before they threw 
away the love and loyalty of the American colonies. 

The Continental Congress met at Philadelphia in Sep- 
tember, 1774. It drew up an appeal to the king of Eng- 
land asking for justice to America. This, was sent to 
Franklin with the request that he lay it before King 
George. And this was the way it ended : " We most ear- 
nestly beseech your majesty that your royal authority and 
interposition may be used for our relief and that a gracious 
answer be given to this petition." 

You might as well beseech a bull-dog to give up his 
bone. The result would be the same — a trrowl and a 

o 

snap. There came no answer " gracious " or otherwise. 
Franklin was not allowed to see the king. The prime 



HO IV HE FOUGHT THE TAX TYRANTS. 1 53 

minister took the petition, and promised that the king 
should see it. The king did see it, and sent it to the 
Parliament. There it lay unnoticed for days. Then it 
was read, treated with contempt and insolence by the Tory 
majority, and finally flung aside unanswered, with the re- 
mark that the American colonists were cow^ards and knaves, 
and deserved a good trouncing. 

Franklin saw that there was nothing more for him to 
do in England. The king and his men were bound to 
follow their own designs, and w^ould not listen to him. 
He longed to get back to America, and stand among his 
countrymen in their trouble and stress. 

But still he staid a little longer, trying to fix up things 
with those in power who were friendly to America, and 
even trying to show how matters might be " smoothed 
over." 

George the Third, king of England, would, however, 
hear of no such thing as smoothing over. ''America must 
be compelled to do what I and my Parliament demand," 
he said ; and Franklin, finding longer delay useless, sailed 
at last, on the twenty-first of March, 1775, to America, 
from which he had been absent for ten years. 

He had to embark secretly for fear of arrest, so strong 
against him had the hatred of the king's men grown. But 
almost the last thing he did was to give them a parting 
shot and a good lesson in his own peculiar way. 

It was just a day or two before he left that Franklin 



154 



HO IV HE FOUGHT l^HE TAX TYRANl'S. 



was at a dinner-party at the house of one of his English 
friends. They were talking about fables, and some one 
said it was not possible to think up a new fable ; ^sop 
had told them all. Then some one said : " How is it, 
Doctor ; can you think of a new one ? " 








there's a fable for you,' he said. 



" I don't know," replied the doctor. " If you'll lend me 
pen, ink, and paper, I'll try." 

He did so, and in a very few moments he said, " There's 
a fable for you." 

He called his fable "The Eagle and the Cat." It cer- 
tainly was a new one; and as the company listened, as 
some one read it aloud, they wondered anew at Franklin's 
readiness, wisdom, and wit. Here it is: — 



HO IV HE FOUGIJT THE TAX TYRANTS. I 55 

"Once upon a time an eagle, scaling round a farmer's 
barn, and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a 
sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with 
him to the air. 

" He soon found that he had a creature of more courage 
and strength than a hare ; for which, notwithstanding the 
keenness of his eyesight, he had mistaken a cat. 

" The snarling and scrambling of his prey were very 
inconvenient ; and, what was worse, she had disengaged 
herself from his talons, grasped his body with her four 
limbs so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of 
his throat with her teeth. 

"'Pray,' said the eagle, 'let go your hold, and I will 
release you.' 

" * Very fine,' said the cat ; 'I have no fancy to fall down 
from this height and be crushed to death. You have taken 
me up, and you shall stoop and let me down.' 

"The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly." 

Can you not see how the fable fitted the case of Eng- 
land and America? The eagle was soon to find that the 
cat's claws were quite as sharp as his own talons, and 
that when he found he had "tackled" a cat instead of a 
timid hare the situation would be changed. 

It was changed speedily; for, even before Franklin 
reached America, the cat had shown her claws, and the 
€agle had found them very sharp indeed. 



156 HO IV HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FIOURISH. 




CHAPTER IX. 

HOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH. 

REAT changes greeted Franklin when, after his ten 
years' absence, he again landed in Philadelphia, and 
walked up Market Street to his home. Great and 
sad changes many of these were. His good and devoted 
wife was dead; she had died suddenly, while the husband 
she so longed to see once more was sailing far across the 
sea to win a stubborn king to acts of friendliness and jus- 
tice. His much-loved and beautiful daughter, whom he had 
left a little girl, had married and gone from her father's 
home. Even that home, as he had known it, was changed. 
The old house, in which he had lived and struggled, had 
been replaced by a new one. His only son, made gov- 
ernor of New Jersey by his father's influence, had de- 
parted from his father's principles, and remained loyal to 
the king and hostile to the rising spirit of liberty. Penn- 
sylvania was in disturbance between the opposing forces 
of proprietors, Tories, and Liberty-men. The colonies were 
rent with clamor and feud ; Lexington and Concord had 
been fought ; blood had been spilled in the conflict be- 
tween independence and tyranny ; and while neither side 



HOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FIOURISH 1 57 



wished to bring about actual war, and each declared that 

the other had really 
begun the fight, an 
army of determined 
men held the British 
shut up in Boston, 
and peace was im- 
possible. 

It was a sad 





INDEPENDENCE HALL. 
{Old front, now rear.') 

home-coming for 
Franklin in many 
ways ; but, through 
his long life of sev- 
enty years, he had 
schooled himself to 
make the best of 
things, and to take 
griefs and disap- 
pointments, joy and 
victory, like a philosopher. He had hoped, even when he 



INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. 
(Old rear, now /roni, on Chestnut Street.) 



158 HOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FIOURISH 

left England, that the trouble between king and colonists 
misrht be arrangfed. But when he saw that war had come, 
he threw himself heart and soul into the struggle against 
oppression. 

His friends and supporters welcomed him joyfully. He 
was America's foremost man. For ten years he had 
labored in behalf of his native land ; in all that land no 
man was so loved or honored as he. Not one of the 
patriots of the American Revolution, whom we now re- 
vere and esteem, had at that day made a name or could 
show a record at all approaching that of Benjamin Frank- 
lin. His coming had been awaited with anxiety ; his 
advice was the one thing most desired. 

The very morning after his arrival he was appointed 
a delegate to the Continental Congress, which was called 
to meet that same month of May, 1775, in Philadelphia; 
the newspapers greeted him as " the friend of his country 
and mankind;" a new hotel or tavern had been named, in 
his honor, the Franklin Inn ; the people were ready and 
waiting for him. " With Franklin in America," they said, 
"the lovers of liberty need have no fear for the future." 

He was an old man as years go ; but he was young 
in energy, in spirit, in will, and in heart. He had grown 
so stout that he himself made fun of his fatness. His 
ruddy face was the picture of health and good cheer, of 
serenity, firmness, benevolence, shrewdness, and force. His 
great head was no longer covered by the big wig he once 



HOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH 1 59 

had worn, but was crowned by his thin gray hair, unpow- 
dered, flowing, and without the queue, or pig-tail, that we 
see in so many revolutionary portraits and pictures. 

He was a fine talker, but a better listener; and when 
he did speak he said something worth hearing. His say- 
ings were remembered and quoted ; his suggestions in all 
matters — public, private, or scientific — were treasured as 
words of wisdom, good-sense, and helpfulness. The man 
who had been slighted and insulted in England was 
America's chief pride and greatest man. 

On the tenth of May, 1775, the Continental Congress 
met in what is now called Independence Hall in Phila- 
delphia, then known as the State House. The first Con- 
tinental Congress, whose petition to the king Franklin 
had presented in England, had met in what was known 
as Carpenter's Hall. If you go to the splendid city of 
Philadelphia to-day you can visit that very Carpenter's 
Hall, set back in a neat and grass-bordered court just off 
Chestnut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets. Then, 
if you go a little way up Chestnut Street, you will see, 
between Fifth and Sixth Streets, the ancient Hall of Con- 
gress, now famous through all the world as Independence 
Hall, — the building in which the Second Continental 
Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, and 
in whose wooden cupola swung the historic liberty bell. 
That is where Benjamin Franklin took his seat as a 
member of Congress. 



l60 HO IV HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH. 

It took a year and more to get to the Declaration. Re- 
sistance had not yet blossomed into independence. 

But matters were working that way. One of the first 
things Franklin did was to vote to support the New 
England men in their defiance of King George, so boldly 
begun at Lexington and Concord. Then came the Act 
to make and issue Continental money for the support of 
the army, whose control and direction the Congress now 
assumed, and to the chief command of which they elected 
Colonel George Washington of Virginia, as " Captain- 
General and Commander-in-chief of the forces of the Thir- 
teen United Colonies." 

The Congress created a post-office department, and 
unanimously elected Benjamin Franklin as postmaster- 
general of the colonies — the very post which King George 
had so rudely taken from him. 

As postmaster-general Franklin had the privilege of 
sending his letters free of postage. When he had been 
postmaster-general for the king he had marked or as it 
is called, " franked " his letters, " Free. B. Franklin " ; but 
when he became postmaster-general for the colonies which 
were struggling for freedom, he wrote his ** frank" in this 
way — he dearly loved his little joke, you know : " B. 
free Franklin." Not bad, was it? 

He served on ten committees in the Congress, work- 
ing hard and speaking but little; with him just then it 
was, " Actions speak louder than words." But when the 



JIOIV HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH. l6l 

bloody battle of Bunker Hill had been fought, and it was 
seen the Continentals could bravely stand their ground 
a^rainst the trained soldiers of the king, Franklin knew 




PHOTOGRAPHED BY BALDWIN COOLIDGE. 

FRANKLIN AND THE COMMITTEE PRESENTING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE 

PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. 
^Bronze bas-relief from Tru,nbuWs picture on pedestal of GreenougVs statne of Franklin, Boston.) 

that the hope of peace had gone; that the time for action 
had come. So in July, 1775- he introduced to the Con- 
gress his plan for the union and government of all the 
colonies of England, to continue until Great Britain had 



l62 



BOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH 



stopped her tyranny, and had paid for the harm she had 
done. If England would not do that, he said, then let 
the colonies be an independent union forever. 

The plan was then considered what you boys call " a 
little previous." But one year later it blossomed into the 
Declaration of Independence, which separated forever the 
American colonies from the British crown. So Franklin, you 

see, was first in the field with 
any movement of progress. 

This was the time, too, soon 
after the Battle of Bunker Hill, 
that Franklin wrote a famous 
double-meaning letter, though 
he was serious enough about it. 
He wrote it to his friend Mr. 
Strahan, an Englishman with 
whom he had always been in- 
timate, and wdiose son, at one 
time, he thought might become his own son-in-law. This is 
the way the letter ran. Read the closing words very 
carefully : — 

Philadelphia, July 5, 1775. 
Mr. Strahan, — 

You are a member of Parliament and one of that majority whicli has doomed 
my Country to Destruction. You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our 
People. Look upon your Hands ! They are stained with the Blood of your Rela- 
tions ! You and I were long Friends: — You are now my Enemy, — and 

I am, 

Yours, 

B. Franklin. 




HE WROTE MR. STRAHAN A FAMOUS LETTER." 



HO IV HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FIOURISH 1 63 

Do you suppose Mr. Strahan read that " Yours, B. 
Franklin," both ways ? 

Besides his ten committees in Congress, Franklin had 
other official duties. As you know, he was postmaster- 
general of the colonies ; and although not many people 
wrote letters in those days, still Franklin found plenty to 
do in making it easier for letters to be sent about the 
country. He was chairman of the Committee of Safety for 
the province of Pennsylvania, and had to see that men 
were found for the protection and defence of the colony in 
case the English government should send soldiers against 
Pennsylvania, as it had against Massachusetts. He was 
a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and had to take 
his part in the duties of that body. 

And yet he found time for other things. He got up 
an arrangement of great spiked timbers sunk in the river 
to obstruct the passage of the Delaware, and keep the Brit- 
ish ships from coming up to Philadelphia ; he designed 
and built a fleet of open gunboats, or row-galleys as they 
were called; and all the time he preached to the people 
" frugality and economy," if they wished to be able to 
set up for themselves, and successfully resist the mighty 
power of England. 

In the fall of 1775 he was one of a committee of Con- 
gress to visit and confer with General Washington at the 
camp in Cambridge. As you stand to-day in front of that 
fine old Craigie house on Brattle Street, in Cambridge, 



164 



HOir HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A EIOURISH. 



equally precious to all Americans as the headquarters of 
Washington and the home of Longfellow, it is not hard 
to picture to yourself those two grand Americans of the 
early days, Washington and Franklin, seated in the room 
to the left of the front door (it was afterwards Longfel- 




WASHINGTON AND FRANKLIN CONFERRING, AT THE CRAIGIE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE. 

low's study) planning for the gathering of a continental 
army for the defence of the liberties of America. 

For, by this time, Benjamin Franklin had gone as far 
in rebellion as John or Samuel Adams, or Patrick Henry, 
or any of the most earnest advocates of American inde- 
pendence. He had thrown off all allegiance to King 
George of England as his lawful sovereign, and had begun 



BOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH. 



165 



by letters and secret agents to secure for the rebellious 

colonies the assistance of England's chief enemies in 

Europe — France, Spain, and Holland. 

In the spring of 1776 he was one of a committee of 

Congress, called Commissioners, to go to Canada, after 

the defeat of the Ameri- 
cans before Quebec, and 
the sad death of their 
leader, General Mont- 
gomery. This Commit- 
tee was sent to straighten 
out the Canadian mud- 
dle, and to try to get 
Canada to join the other 
colonies in their revolt 
against England. 

It was a hard, cold 
journey for an old man 

(_N(nu in Indepetidence Hall, Philadelphia.) ^C cp\7'Pnt\7' * foT* 1 1" 'Wn c; 

a good five hundred miles from Philadelphia to Montreal, 
and there were none of the comforts of travelling in those 
days, you know. But Franklin did his part with the rest, 
only to find that they were too late. The British force 
at Quebec had been strengthened, the little American army 
was compelled to retreat, and Canada refused to join the 
union, but cast in her lot with England, to remain loyal to 
the British crown even to this day. 




^^^ 



THE LIBERTY BELL, WHICH FRANKLIN SET A-RINGING. 



1 66 BOJV HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH. 

In the summer of 1776 Franklin was back again in 
Philadelphia, occupying his seat in the Congress. He was 
a member of the Pennsylvania convention which over- 
threw forever the proprietorship of the Penn family and 
renounced all allegiance to the English king. This was 
speedily followed, in the Continental Congress, by that 
great and glorious service to liberty and mankind, when 
Benjamin Franklin was appointed one of a committee of 
five to draw up and present to the Congress the immortal 
Declaration of Independence. 

His share in the preparation of this great document 
was more in the way of suggestion and advice than of 
actual composition. The Declaration of Independence was, 
you know, wTitten by Thomas Jefferson. He WTOte it in 
the house where he lodged on the corner of Seventh and 
Market Streets, in the city of Philadelphia. To-day, in a 
bank building on that very corner, is set a bronze tablet 
to commemorate the event. There Franklin visited him ; 
and we can picture the big, quiet, genial-faced old phi- 
losopher sitting in the high-backed easy-chair, listening, 
suggesting, approving, while " the father of the Declara- 
tion," as men call Thomas Jefferson, read to the doctor his 
draft of that wonderful paper.^ How Franklin must have 
enjoyed it all, and how his eyes must have glistened with 
satisfaction as Jefferson read the chief points in the in- 
dictment against George, king of England " a prince whose 

^ See Frontispiece. 




SOME OF franklin's FELLOW-WORKERS FOR LIBERTY. 



Patrick Henry of Virginia. 
{,The Champion of Independence). 

John Hancock of Massachusetts. 
( The President of the Continerital Congrea) 



Samuel Adams of Massachusetts. 
{T/ie Father of the Revolution.) 



James Monroe of Virginia. 
{Author of the "Monroe Doctrine,'''') 

John Marshall of Virginia. 
( Tlie Great Chief Justice.) 



HO IV HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH, 169 

character is marked by every act which may define a ty- 
rant, unfit to be the ruler of a free people." How his 
voice must have echoed with a hearty " amen " those ring- 
ing words in which the Declaration declared : " that these 
united colonies are, and of right ought to be. Free and 
Independent States ; that they are absolved from all alle- 
giance to the British crown, and that all political connec- 
tion between them and the state of Great Britain is and 
ought to be totally dissolved." 

It is claimed by some that it was a good thing that 
Franklin did not really write the Declaration. For this 
cheerful philosopher would always see the funny side of 
things as well as the serious side; and in such a solemn 
paper as the Declaration of Independence, there could be 
no place for any of his witty remarks. He would always 
have his joke, even in those serious sessions of a very 
serious Congress; and Mr. Parton, one of his biographers, 
declares that Franklin, ''a humorist of fifty years stand- 
ing, would have put a joke even into the Declaration of 
Independence, if it had fallen to his lot to write that im- 
mortal document." 

At last, after weeks of discussion, of consultation, and 
of deliberation, the great paper was accepted; and on the 
Fourth of July, 1776, adopted and given to the world by 
Congress. The liberty bell in the cupola rang out the 
glad news, the people heard and shouted, and then was 
born the United States of America. 



lyO HOW HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A FLOURISH 

One by one the members of the Congress signed the 
famous paper, and made their names household words for 
all time to come. 

Franklin signed his name with a flourish as great as 
his delight; and when John Hancock, president of the 
Congress, whose bold signature is familiar to every boy 
and girl, said to his associates, "we must be unanimous; 
there must be no pulling different ways ; we must all hang 
together," Franklin, taking the pen, said, with a twinkle 
in his eye, "That's so, John; we must indeed all hang to- 
gether, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." 

Even in the face of danger, you see, he could be jolly. 
For Benjamin Franklin was a cheerful old soul, always 
bubbling over with fun ; he could make sport even of 
personal danger, and was as quick to see the sunny and 
humorous side of life as he was to see its deep and seri- 
ous side. He had experienced both, you kno\v. 

He was experiencing the latter even at that time. For^ 
while he was expending the strength and energy of his 
life at seventy in pushing through the independence of 
America, his only son, whom he had so helped and ad- 
vanced in the world, the one wdio had stood beside him 
under the dripping cowshed that day when the philoso- 
pher had drawn the lightning from the sky, had become 
a Tory of the Tories, an open enemy of the great cause in 
which his father was so involved, and a prisoner in the 
hands of those he called " rebels," saved only from pun- 



HOJV HE SIGNED HIS NAME WITH A ELOURISH 1 71 

ishment and disgrace by the love which the new nation 
bore to his revered and honored father. 




FRANKLIN SIGNS THE DECLARATION — "'THAT'S SO, JOHN,' HE SAID, WITH A TWINKLE IN HIS EYE." 






The defection and conduct of Governor William Frank- 
lin of New Jersey w^as a sore spot in the patriotic heart 



172 BOJV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 

of Benjamin Franklin. It was the one thing which the 
kind and forgiving man could not overlook or excuse, 
and which he did not, even to the day of his death. So 
strong was Franklin's devotion to the cause of liberty, 
for which he had labored night and day, and for which 
he stood ready, if the call should come, to give up even 
life itself! 




CHAPTER X. 

HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 

N a certain November day of 1775, a little lame 
Frenchman called upon Doctor Franklin in his 
Committee room at Carpenters' Hall. He was the 
writer of several very mysterious letters to Congress that 
told nothing, but simply asked for an opportunity to de- 
liver to Congress a secret and most important message. 
So, at last, Franklin was asked to see him, in company 
with two other members of Congress, Jefferson and Jay. 
His message was a startling one. It was that, when- 
ever the Americans needed arms, ammunition, ships, or 
money, France would gladly supply them. 

The committee thought at first that their visitor was 
what to-day we call a crank. They asked him who had 
sent him, who had given him authority to deliver such 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 1 73 

a message, and whether he had any written introduction 
or credentials to show who he was. 

The little French stranger only shrugged his shoulders 
in true French style, made the dreadfully significant move- 
ment of drawing his hand across his throat, and said, 
^^ Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head." 





THE LITTLE LAME FRENCHMAN. — " THEY ASKED HIM WHO HAD SENT HIM." 



Then he bowed himself out of the room, and was never 



seen agam, 



That reads almost like one of Grimm's fairy stories, or 
a ''to be continued" adventure tale, does it not? But it 
was a true happening, and was one of the causes that 
led Benjamin Franklin, in his seventieth year, once more 



174 ^OW BE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 

to cross the sea, and enabled him to save his country a 
second time. 

For the visit of this mysterious stranger to the com- 
mittee room in Carpenters' Hall set Franklin and the 
Congress to thinking. And while they were not sure 
that their visitor was "all right in his upper story," they 
still thought he might be a secret messenger from France, 
and so they began sounding ''their friends abroad." A 
Committee of Correspondence, of which Franklin was a 
member, was formed to write secret letters to friends of 
the colonies in Great Britain and Ireland, "and other parts 
of the world." This last, of course, meant France; and 
Franklin was the hardest worked member of this secret 
committee. 

Nothing came of this for several months; but at last, 
in the summer of 1776, Franklin received from one of 
his friends in Paris a letter which made him very happy. 
The letter was a long one, and told him that certain en- 
thusiastic French friends of America had made it pos- 
sible to get help from France, in the way of muskets and 
cannon, officers of the army, and other "supplies," with 
the secret approval of the French government, for the use 
of the Americans in their fight with England. 

This sounded like business. It showed Franklin that 
France would be glad of an opportunity to " pay back " 
her old enemy England for the defeats in America in the 
days when France and England were struggling for pos- 



HOW BE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 1 75 

session. It braced up the disheartened American leaders, 
after the coming of the Hessians and the sorry defeat on 
Long Island; it set Congress to planning and doing; and, 
as a result, three Americans, called commissioners, were 
sent to France to try to get the real support of France 
by making what is called an alliance between that nation 
and the American '* rebels." 

Franklin was unanimously elected as the leading mem- 
ber of this Commission. 

He was not surprised. He felt that such an appoint- 
ment w^as coming. But he was an old man to undertake 
so important a mission. Still, he was ready to do any- 
thing in his power for the service of his country; and 
when he was elected, he said to his friend Dr. Rush, who 
sat next to him in the Congress, " I am old, and good for 
nothing ; but, as the store-keepers say of their remnants 
of cloth, I am but a fag end, and you can have me for 
what you please." 

And so it came to pass that, in his seventieth year, 
Benjamin Franklin was sent over the sea to get the French 
king and court to really help America. 

Do you know who that king was ? It was young 
Louis the Sixteenth, the gentle, lovable, weak, and timid 
king of France, who, years after, was to lose his crown 
and his head because the French nation, spurred on by 
the very liberty that Franklin preached and America prac- 
tised, themselves set up a republic, but not having the 



iy6 HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 

good sense and great heart that both Franklin and Amer- 
ica possessed, made a wreck of their possibilities, and 
drenched a splendid endeavor with blood and tears. There 
are two ways of doing a thing, you know ; and France 
tried the wrong way. 

But no one thought about that wrong way when on 
the twenty-seventh of October, 1776, Franklin set sail for 
France. He had to embark stealthily, just as he had 
run away from Boston so many years before. For it was 
very important that England should not know of what 
was going on. 

So, late on that October day, Franklin and his two 
grandsons — a boy of seventeen and a boy of seven — 
stole on board the swift sloop of war Reprisal, which was 
waiting for them in the Delaware, and slipped off for sea 
and for France. 

And almost the last thing Franklin did before leaving 
his native land — as he felt, perhaps for the last time — 
was to gather all the money of his own that he could 
collect from different investments, some twenty thousand 
dollars in all, and lend it to the hard-pressed Congress, 
then sorely in need of ready money. That showed his 
faith in the cause. That was patriotism ! 

The old Doctor and the two boys had an exciting voy- 
age. The elder of the two grandsons kept a journal, but 
it is almost as uncommunicative as the one Mark Twain 
tells of, in which a modern boy gave each day's hap- 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY 'THE SECOND TIME. 1 77 

penings as follows: "got up, washed, went to bed." Those 
boys had adventures enough to make a story. They 
dodsred the English cruisers which were close at their 
heels ; twice or more they " cleared for action," but got off 
without fight ; they faced great seas, buffeted the storms, 
and just escaped shipwreck; they took two English ves- 
sels as prizes, and, — just think of it! — had Benjamin 
Franklin as their travelling companion, to teach them 
French, study the temperature of the ocean and find out 
about the Gulf Stream — which was one of his discov- 
eries. 

They sighted the French coast off Quiberon Bay, came 
to anchor in the mouth of the Loire, and were transferred to 
a small fishing-boat which took them ashore to a miserable 
little fishing-village. There they got some sort of a car- 
riage, and drove by night across a lonesome country and 
through a robber-infested forest until they came to the city 
of Nantes on the river Loire, famous for a celebrated proc- 
lamation by one of the greatest of French kings, of which 
you will some day read in history — the Edict of Nantes, 
"the charter of religious liberty" in France. It was a fit- 
ting place for Franklin, the " advance agent " of liberty, 
to appear in France, — in France, the home of Lafayette. 

The poor old man was weak and ill in body from his 
perilous sea-voyage and his hard landing; but he was 
strong and well in spirits, and as full of pluck as ever, 
and, after a good rest, was ag-ain in excellent trim. 



1 78 HO IV BE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 



Then he began to get some idea of the way in which 
he was esteemed in France. The "friends of America" in 
Nantes gave him a great dinner; crowds came to look at 

him ; and when, at 
last, he started for 
Paris, three hundred 
miles away, he knew 
that France \\' a s 
friendly. 

S o, a t last, he 
reached Paris. At 
once he became the 
most popular man in 
that great, pleasure- 
loving city. People 
talked about the 
great American phi- 
losopher who had 
come to town ; they 
crowded to see him, 
they spread abroad 
his fame and his 
wise and witty say- 
ings, and became enthusiastic in behalf of American lib- 
erty. How those two grandsons must have enjoyed it, 
mustn't they? 

Their grandfather, '• le grand Franklin " as the French 




THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE, BELOVED BY WASHINGTON AND 
FRANKLIN AND ALL AMERICA. 



BOJV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 1 79 

people called him, was indeed a marked figure in gay 
and fashionable Paris. His very plainness and simplicity 
of dress in an age of ruffles and laces and powder, and 
velvet and diamonds and gold, gave him prominence. 
" Figure me, in your mind," he wrote to a friend, " as 
jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty, only a few 
years older; very plainly dressed, wearing very thin gray 
straight hair, that peeps out under a fine fur cap which 
curves down on my forehead almost to my spectacles. 
Think how this must appear among the powdered heads 
of Paris ! " 

But, as I have told you, this very simplicity of dress 
set off the natural grandeur of this noble old man, and 
set all Paris to talking of him. " Even before he began 
to negotiate," says a German writer, "his appearance in 
Paris was an event of great importance to the whole of 
Europe." You read to-day, you know, of " the latest 
Paris fashions." Franklin became the ** fashion" in Paris; 
and one French writer tells us, '' Happy was he who could 
gain admittance to see this venerable old man in the 
house which he occupied." The candle-maker's son had 
become " the fad " in France. 

England was very angry. Such a reception to " a 
rebel " was an insult to England. ** The presence of 
Franklin in France," said one of the ministers of King 
George," "is much more than a balance for the few addi- 
tional acres which the English have gained by the con- 



l80 HO IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOXD TIME. 

quest of Manhattan Island." So, you see, Franklin's safe 
arrival in France and his welcome there were as good as 
a big victory for the American cause. People made w^ay 
for him in the street, as if he were some great prince; 
they followed and cheered him as if he w^re a successful 
general; his picture was everywhere, — in store windows, 
on snuff-boxes, handkerchiefs, and prints, **so that," he WTote 
to his daughter in America, "your father's face is as well 
known as that of the man in the moon ; and he durst not 
do anything that would oblige him to run away, as his 
phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to 
show it." 

England's anger, indeed, was Franklin's best advertise- 
ment ; and, as he had been a successful newspaper man, 
he knew the value of such advertising. So he grew more 
popular every day; and his name, so his associate John 
Adams of Massachusetts tells us, "was familiar to govern- 
ment and people, to kings, courtiers, nobility, clergy, and 
philosophers, so that there was scarcely a peasant or a cit- 
izen who did not consider him a friend to humankind." 

This was all very fine, and was at once a triumph 
for America and for America's representative, the Phila- 
delphia printer; but it interfered with business. All this 
rush and excitement kept him from his work ; and at last 
he went to live in a grand country house, or chateau, 
called the Hotel de Valentinais. It was just outside of 
Paris, in a suburb called Passy, and was placed at his 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. l8l 

service without rent by its owner, a rich Frenchman named 
de Chaumont, an admirer of Doctor Franklin and a friend 
of America. 

Here, as the envoy and ambassador of the revolted col- 
onies and the new republic across the seas, Franklin lived 
for several years, in the midst of parks and mansions ; and 



y" 

^\- '-.' 



•S 1 



.vi*-' ■■; 



^^' .'i i^irll^^^^^^^^ 







THE HOTEL DE VALENTINAIS, AT PASSY. 
COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE CHATEAU DE CHAUMONT. THE HOME OF FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 

{Redrawn from an old print). 

here he set to work at his great task of winning France's 
help for America. 

In spite of his popularity and his great fame, this was 
no easy task. Franklin was not the only American envoy 
in France. Two others had been associated with him, 
and there were certain other " agents," whose duty lay 



1 82 no IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 

elsewhere ; but these all met at Paris, or in Franklin's 
home at Passy, and their discussions, jealousies, mistakes, 
imprudent acts, and political secrets, called diplomacy, led 
to quarrels and wordy wars, in which Franklin was the 
only one who kept his peace, his tongue, and his good 
sense. 

The French people wished to help America ; but the 
king of France and his chief advisers did not desire to 
get into war with England, and had to put off the en- 
voys with promises, secret loans of money, and things 
" done," as we say, " on the sly." What with their cau- 
tion, — for the war in America went so steadily against 
Washington and the Continental troops that only a few 
had faith in the final triumph of the Americans, — and 
what with the incautious acts and words of the American 
envoys, the chief minister of King Louis was nearly out 
of his wits, and could trust no one and rely upon no one 
but Franklin. Indeed, after the dark days had passed, 
and the thing had really been settled, he wrote to the 
representative whom the French king had sent to Amer- 
ica: "As to Doctor Franklin, his conduct leaves Congress 
nothing to desire. It is as zealous and patriotic as it is 
wise and circumspect ; " and then he went on to say that 
they could trust Franklin's methods rather than those of 
his associates in France, '* to whom," he said, ** we can give 
neither credence nor value, and whose menaces make them 
personally disagreeable." 



BOJV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 1 83 

So, you see, if it had not been for Franklin's presence 
in France, and the way in which he acted and attended 
to his country's affairs, the French alliance, upon which 
so much depended, and w'hich really hastened the suc- 
cessful close of the Revolution, might never have been 
arranged. His work in France, and the ends which he 
accomplished, really gave independence to America ; and 
thus he saved his country a second time. 

The work he did was very great. He wrote and talked 
so cheerfully, even in the darkest of America's days of 
stress, that he continually brought hope to the friends and 
fear to the enemies of the United States. He kept the 
French people enthusiastic in behalf of the American 
cause; he persuaded the king and his ministers that it 
was really their duty to help the Americans ; he carried 
through the treaty of ' alliance in the winter of 1777, by 
which France agreed to help the Americans against Eng- 
land ; he prevailed upon them to send the news of this 
across the sea in a French war-vessel, as a proof of their 
open sincerity; he signed for the United States the great 
paper that bound the two countries, France and America, 
together for mutual friendship and defence ; and at last, 
on the sixth of February, 1778, was formally received, 
with his two associates, by King Louis at his palace at 
Versailles, when, through them, the United States was 
officially recognized as a separate and independent na- 
tion. 



184 ^-^OIV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 

Money is the chief thing needed, next to patriotism, 
to carry on a war. Indeed, without money, even patriotism 
must fail; for men must live, and armies must be sup- 
ported. Money, you know, is called " the sinews of war." 




THE TREATY OF ALLIANCE. — "HE SIGNED FOR THE UNITED STATES." 



The success of Franklin in obtaining money from France 
for use in America was extraordinary. France at that 
time was in great stress and deeply in debt herself; the 
minister of King Louis who had charge of the finances of 
France — the treasury, as it is called — fought this money 



HO IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 1 85 

help to America " tooth and nail ; " and yet, in face of 
the bankruptcy of France and the opposition of the min- 
ister of finance, Franklin secured from the French gov- 
ernment as loans or as gifts over six millions of dollars 
(thirty million francs). 

He did much to encourage and help the French offi- 
cers who were anxious *to join the American army. He 
corresponded with the brave young Marquis de Lafayette; 
and when that determined boy of nineteen really escaped 
the watchfulness of his king, his friends, and the British 
detectives, and ran across the sea to America, Franklin, 
though he had openly tried to dissuade him, secretly re- 
joiced, and wrote at once to the Congress, ** He is exceed- 
ingly beloved, and everybody's good wishes attend him. 
Those who conceive his departure as imprudent do never- 
theless applaud his spirit; and we are satisfied that the 
civilities and respect that may be shown him will be ser- 
viceable to our affairs here, as pleasing not only to his 
powerful relations and to the court, but to the whole 
French nation." 

And when Lafayette, always dear to the American 
people, in 1779 came back to France on leave of absence 
to consult with the king of France as to his duty, because 
war had been declared against France by England, it 
was most fitting that he should be chosen by Congress 
as the bearer of the commission which appointed Benja- 
min Franklin '* sole plenipotentiary of the United States 



1 86 HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 



to the court of France" — in other words, the first Amer- 
ican minister to France. 

The steadfast and patriotic doctor had now neither 

zealous associate nor 
secret rival. He had 
all the say. He was 
" director and con- 
troller of his coun- 
try's affairs in the 
continent of Europe,, 
naval, commercial, 
financial, and politi- 
cal." It was a great 
triumph for his abil- 
ity, his good sense, 
his unwavering faith, 
and his simple integ- 
rity. 

He was now more 
popular than ever in 
France ; he was fa- 
mous throughout all 
Europe ; there was no 
American that Kinor Georofe of Eno^land more feared or 
hated ; there was none who could so well succeed, as he 
did, in advancing the interests of his native land abroad. 
That famous American captain and prince of privateers, 




Jul IN TALL JdNES. 
(^Commander of the ''''Bon Hoiiivie Richard,'" victor oz>er the " Serapis.''') 




THE MESSENGER FROM AMERICA. — "ALMOST BEFORE YOUNG MR. AUSTIN WAS OUT OF HIS CARRIAGE, 

FRANKLIN WAS AT THE DOOR," 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 1 89 

John Paul Jones, whose life is as interesting as a story- 
book, when at last he secured from the French government 
the gift of a great man-of-war, renamed the vessel at once, 
" Bon Homme Richard," in honor of Dr. Franklin who, 
you know, w^as famous because of his almanac sayings 
as ''Poor Richard;" and "Good Man Richard" is what 
the name of Captain Paul Jones's famous forty-gun frigate 
means. You know the story of the great and glorious sea- 
fight between the Bon Homme Richard and the English 
war-vessel Serapis. If you do not, you should read it at 
once, for it is one of the most famous sea-fights in the 
history of the world ; and for this victory Franklin was 
largely responsible. 

One November day in 1777, long before Franklin had 
been made American minister, a carriage drove rapidly 
out from Paris into Passy, and drew up in the court of 
Monsieur de Chaumout's splendid chateau. A young man 
sprang out. He was young Mr. Austin of Boston, bearer 
of despatches from the Congress of the United States to 
the American envoys in France. Franklin and his asso- 
ciates hurried out to meet the messenger, for they had 
already heard that one was on the way. Austin had 
come quickly — only thirty-two days from America. He 
came at a dark moment. Everything had been going 
wrong for America ; and the last the envoys had heard 
was that Washington was retreating in Pennsylvania, and 
that a British army from Canada, under the brave Gen- 



190 I/OJV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 



eral Burgoyne, had invaded New York. Franklin feared 
the worst. 

Almost before young Mr. Austin was out of his car- 
riage, Franklin was 
at the door. 

** Sir," cried the 
old man, thinking of 
his home, " is Phila- 
delphia taken ? " 

"Yes, sir," the 
young man replied, 
"it is." 

Frankli n sai d 
nothing. He clasped 
his hands in silent 
sorrow, and turned as 
if to go into the 
house." 

"Wait, Doctor," 
the young bearer of 
despatches called 
out. " Philadelphia 
is taken, but I have 
greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole 
army are prisoners of war ! " 

Then how glad they were. The new^s was inspiring. It 
changed the whole condition of affairs ; for upon this suc- 




GENERAL BURGOYNE, THE BRITISH COMMANDER, WHOSE CAPTURE 
AT SARATOGA LED TO THE ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. I9I 

cess Franklin built his new appeal. France was aroused 
to action, and the treaty of alliance with the United States 
was drawn up and signed. And Franklin never forgot 
that young bearer of despatches. "Oh, Mr. Austin, you 
brought us glorious news ! " he would break out again 
and again. He gave the young man a fine time in Paris, 
and obtained for him important and honorable duty as 
special commissioner for America. It was the turning- 
point in France. 

The French troops sailed over the sea. Yorktown was 
won. Cornwallis surrendered. The war was at an end. 
America was free. Franklin, worn and tired out, an old 
man of seventy-five years, broken by his great responsi- 
bility and labors, wished to retire from the services which 
had well nigh broken him down. 

" I have been engaged in public affairs," he wrote to 
the Congress, " and enjoyed public confidence in some 
shape or other, during the long term of fifty years, an 
honor sufficient to satisfy any reasonable ambition ; I have 
no other left but that of repose, which I hope the Con- 
gress will grant me by sending some person to supply 
my place. At the same time I beg them to be assured 
that it is not with the least doubt of their success in the 
glorious cause, nor any disgust received in their service, 
that induces me to decline it, but purely and simply the 
reason I have mentioned." 

But America could not spare him from duty in France, 



192 



BOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 



even when he pleaded sickness and old age. For now 
the end of the war was at hand ; now came the hardest 
task of all, — to arrange a lasting peace between the two 
nations, Great Britain and the United States. 




PHOTOGRAPHCD BY BALDWIN COOLIDGE. 



SIGNING THE TREATY OF PEACE. 
(Bas-relief on the pedestal oj GreenougVs Statue of Frank/in, in /ro?tt fif the City Hall, Boston.) 

It was arranged at last. After long discussions, and 
longer delays, after obstinate objections from England 
and sweeping demands from America, and frequent criti- 
cisms by France, the final treaty of peace was drawn up 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE SECOND TIME. 193 

and signed at Paris, on the thiid of September, 1783. Con- 
gress in January, and the king of England in April, 1784, 
accepted, or, as it is called, ratified the treaty, and America 
was free at last. 

Then once more Franklin begged to be relieved from 
duty; and at last, in March, 1785, Congress voted to per- 
mit ''the Honorable Benjamin Franklin, Esquire, to return 
to America as soon as convenient," and appointed Thomas 
Jefferson to succeed him as American Minister to the 
French Court, — honoring thus the two "heroes" of the 
Declaration of Independence. 

" You replace Doctor Franklin, I hear," said the chief 
minister of King Louis of France, when Mr. Jefferson was 
introduced to him at the Court. 

" Sir," said Jefferson with a bow, " I succeed Doctor 
Franklin. No one can replace him." 

Which was a very kindly and courteous way of com- 
plimenting the great man who had carried the affairs of 
America to success in the troublesome times before the 
French Alliance. Do you not think so ? 



194 HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 




CHAPTER XI. 

HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

HEN at last the time came for Franklin to say 
good-by to France, and return to America, the 
French people were very sorry indeed to have 
him go, and they said good-by grandly. 

Here was no stealing away quietly for fear of hostile 
cruisers or watchful detectives. He left France in fine 
style. The king sent his portrait, decorated with four 
hundred diamonds ; the queen sent her litter, slung be- 
tween two sure-footed mules, so that the pain-racked 
Franklin — for he was now far from well — might travel 
in comfort; the chief minister of King Louis, the man 
through whom and in spite of whom Franklin had won 
for America the aid of France, bade him the friendliest of 
farewells ; friends and neighbors, noble and peasant, high 
and low, came out to do him honor as he made his slow 
progress from Passy to the sea ; great houses were opetied 
to receive him at meals or over night; it was like the 
progress of a prince through his dominions. 

More than this, after he had got into British waters 
(for his ship was to sail from an English port), the Brit-- 



HO IV HE BECAME PRESIDENT OE PENNSYLVANIA. 1 95 

ish government, his long and bitter enemy, hastened to 
do him honor, passed his goods and baggage through the 
English custom house without examination, and was as 
attentive and friendly as could be. 




IN THE queen's LITTER — "IT WAS LIKE THE PROGRESS OF A PRINCE. 

'Old friends in England, who had not seen him for 
years, crowded about him at Southampton. His son, the 
Tory governor, now an exile from victorious America, hur- 
ried to see him ; and father and son, with a return of the 
old affection, embraced, and partly forgave each other. 



10)6 BOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Thus, amid tears and good-bys, Franklin sailed away 
to America. He had captured France; he had captured 
England. Both nations were his admirers and his friends ; 
both saw him sail across the western ocean with reo;ret 
and affection. 

You would think that, old, sick, and weary as he was, 
Franklin would have simply rested during the homeward 
voyage. But he couldn't. His health improved during 
his travels, and this wonderful old man put his spare 
time to good account in observing and improving things. 
He wrote three long and valuable essays in explanation 
of three important things : How to sail vessels, How to 
cure smoky chimneys. How to make a stove burn its own 
smoke. Besides this, he studied further into his theory 
of the Gulf Stream, and discussed all sorts of things with 
the captain of the ship, Thomas Truxton, afterwards one 
of America's naval heroes. Did you ever hear or read 
of a livelier old man of eighty? 

At last the voyage was ended ; and on the fourteenth 
of September, 1785, Benjamin Franklin, the great Ameri- 
can, landed in the midst of a shouting and jubilant crowd 
of his welcoming fellow-citizens, at that very same Mar- 
ket Street wharf in Philadelphia upon wdiich, sixty-two 
years before, he had landed poor, homeless, friendless, 
and seedy, a runaway apprentice boy, alone in the world. 
Is there a prince in all your fairy tales, or a hero in 
all your story-books, whose romance can equal this true 




THE RETURN OF FRANKLIN -"HE LANDED IN THE MIDST OF A SHOUTING, JUBILANT CROWD."' 



HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OE PENNSYLVANIA. 



199 



and wonderful story of Benjamin Franklin? I know of 
none. 

Philadelphia turned out to Avelcome him. Escorted in 
style to his very door, crowned with honors, loved and 
revered by all, Franklin had come back to his own again. 
'' Found my family well," he said in his diary ; " God be 
thanked and praised for all his mercies." He was just 
as simple, just as unspoiled, just the same natural, big- 
hearted, friendly Benjamin Franklin as ever. 

Societies, colleges, assemblies, political bodies, and pri- 
vate persons sent him addresses of welcome ; and Wash- 
ington wTote to him, "As no one entertains more respect 
for your character, so no one can salute you with more 
sincerity or w^ith greater pleasure than I do on this 
occasion." 

He was glad to be at home once more ; health and 
strength seemed to return to him. He sometimes forgot, 
he said, that he was an old man ; he talked of making a 
trip to New York, and even hoped to see his "beloved 
Boston." He was as merry, as cheerful, as bright, as 
clear-eyed, and as strong-voiced as ever, and he simply 
couldn't keep still. 

His fellow-citizens did not mean that he should. The 
new State of Pennsylvania was in political struggles, and 
people said that Doctor Franklin was the only man to 
set things straight. At once he was elected Chairman of 
the City Council ; and when the election for governor of 



200 HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the State, or as it was then called, President of Pennsyl- 
vania, came about, he was elected by every vote save one, 
and probably that one was his own. 

He said he had had enough of politics and of public 
life ; he wished to spend the rest of his days in study 
and in the company of his friends and his family ; he was 
old, he said ; let younger men take the lead. 

But the people prevailed. Entreaties came to him 
not only from his fellow-citizens, but from the citizens of 
other States, who felt as did Franklin's old associate John 
Jay: "If you cannot restore harmony to Pennsylvania," 
he wTote, " I do not know who can. And if you do ac- 
complish it, much honor and many blessings will result." 

So Franklin, though nearly eighty years old, was pre- 
vailed upon to serve his State as president. " I have not 
firmness enough," he said to Doctor Cooper, one of his 
friends, " to resist the unanimous desire of my country- 
folks, and I find myself harnessed again in their service 
for another year. They engrossed the prime of my life ; 
they have eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to pick 
my bones." 

"Well, Doctor," replied the friend to whom he made 
this funny speech ; " they show their good taste ; for, don't 
you know what they say — 'the nearer the bone the sweeter 
the meat.' " 

And I don't doubt that Franklin laughed long over 
this capital answer from his friend. 



HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 20I 



But Franklin, modest and simple though he was, did 
dearly love to be at the head of things; and though this 
new office was a good deal for so old a man to under- 
take, still he seems to have taken hold of it cheerfully and 
willingly. 

He w^as escorted to the 
State House on Inauguration 



day in great style. Consta- 
bles with their staves, sheriffs 
with their wands, judges and 
marshals and high officers of 
State, the " sergeant at arms 
with his mace," professors of 
the college, clerks and secre- 
taries, the members of the 
assembly *' two and two," sol- 
diers, citizens, music and cheers 
— these filled the streets of 
Philadelphia, escorting and 
honoring the first President 
of Pennsylvania, — quite a dif- 
ferent entry from that of the runaway apprentice- boy, munch- 
ing rolls, was it not ? 

He made a good president, of course. His wisdom 
and moderation smoothed down the political rivalries and 
jealousies of the opposing parties — there always are two 
parties in politics as in ball games, you know; and while 




THE NEARER THE BONE THE SWEETER 
THE MEAT." 



202 HOW HE BECAME PRESIDEN2' OF PEXNSYLVANL4. 

he did not have to work very hard, his presence in the 
ruler's chair gave strength and success to his administra- 
tion, and things ran ' along smoothly and delightfully. 
Under President Benjamin Franklin the State of Penn- 
sylvania was peaceful, prosperous, and happy. 

He would not take any salary. The amount voted 
for that purpose he turned over at once for public needs. 
He said he had enough for his wants, and did not think 
that offices of honor, such as that of mayor, governor 
or president, should, in a republic, be money-making posi- 
tions. 

He continued his gifts in other ways. He helped 
many struggling schools and colleges, doing good with 
his money in just such practical and helpful ways as 
you would expect in a man like him. People have called 
Franklin stingy and penny-wise. They are wrong. The 
man who so readily helps on young men, and aids col- 
leges, is not stingy ; the man who could lend all his ready 
money to a struggling and uncertain government, as did 
he in the dark hours of the Revolution, is certainly not 
penny-wise. Franklin knew how to place his money where 
it would do — not himself, but humanity — the most good, 
and thus it did him fjood too. 

He dearly enjoyed his home life at this time, also, in 
his big house on Market Street. 

I hunted up the site of that house once when I was 
on a "Franklin hunt" in Philadelphia — that comfortable 



HOJV HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



203 



house, standing in the midst of trees and lawns and 
flowering shrubs, which his wife Deborah had built while 
he was away in Europe, and which they had never shared 
or enjoyed together. Alas! it is only a "site" now. It 




NEAR franklin's OLD HOME. 
{Ousiftut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, as it looks to-day.) 

was the block bounded by Third and Fourth, Market and 
Chestnut Streets. A queer little arched passage leads 
from Market Street into a narrow court; and there, half- 
way toward Chestnut Street, is the spot about where the 

It is hedged all about now 



home of Franklin stood. 



204 ffOJV HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

with tall warehouses and blank walls ; it is neither invit- 
ing nor attractive; and yet, shut your eyes and you can 
almost imagine the big rambling house standing in its 
shrubbery, with its lawn stretching down to Chestnut 
Street, — the line old Revolutionary mansion in which the 
most remarkable of Americans passed his last days, play- 
ing with his grandchildren, discussing with his friends, 
acting his part as the chief man of his city and State, 
the President of Pennsylvania. 

"The companions of my youth," he said, "are, indeed, 
almost all departed ; but I find an agreeable society among 
their children and grandchildren. I have public business 
enough to preserve me from enmii, and private amuse- 
ment, besides, in conversation, books, my garden, and crib- 
bage. I have indeed, now and then, a little compunction 
in reflecting that I spend time so idly; but another reflec- 
tion comes to relieve me, whispering, ' You know that 
the soul is immortal ; wdiy, then, should you be such a 
niggard of a little time, wdien you have a whole eternity 
before you?'" All of wdiich sounds as if he took things 
a little easier in his old age, does it not? And I am 
sure you will say that one who had done so much all 
his life ought to have it easy when he had come to 
eighty years old. 

And yet, although he made believe he was " loafing," 
he was not really idle. When he had nothing else to 
do, he was at work on the new wing to this comfortable 



HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OE PENNSYLVANIA. 205 



house of his, long since swallowed up by those ware- 
houses and that narrow alley. 

He was not very strong, you know, and could not 
always be out in the evening; so he arranged it that, in- 
stead of going out to his Society, his Society could come 
to him. This was his much-loved Philosophical Society 
— one still existing in Philadelphia. 

He built a three-story addition to his house. The first 
floor was for the meetings of his Philosophical Society, 
the second w^as his library, the 
third was for sleeping-rooms. 
He got up all sorts of queer 
things as labor-savers there. He 
had something to take down 
books from the highest shelves 
which he called his " long arm; " 
and in the rooms of the Philo- 
sophical Society in Philadelphia 
you may still see his patent 
chair, which he used at the 
meetings of the Society when, 
in his last days, it assembled 

in his sick-room in the upper part of the house. The 
seat of this great chair is reversible. The upper side 
is a cushioned seat ; tip this up, and on the under side 
you see a sort of step-ladder, by which the sick and aged 
Franklin could climb into his high four-post bed when 




franklin's pew. 

(Pari of the pew in Christ Church, Philadelphia, 

occupied by Franklin, Lafayette, and 

Washington, and still preserved.) 



206 IIOJV HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

he was tired or when the meeting of the Society was over. 
It is an odd and ingenious contrivance, and shows you, 
better than I can say, how inventive Franklin w^as. His 
mind was a regular storehouse of ideas, plans, thoughts, 
and wisdom. 

When his first year of service as President of Penn- 
sylvania was over, the people would not let him retire. 
They elected him again and yet again, so that he served 
three terms; and he confesses that this was "agreeable" 
to him. He did not like to give up, you see; and he 
felt, too, as he expressed it, that "the esteem of his coun- 
try with regard to him was undiminished." 

His administration as President was a prosperous time 
for Pennsylvania. " Our farmers," he wrote to a friend 
(you have learned long before this that Franklin was a 
great letter-writer), " have plentiful crops ; our working- 
people are all employed on high wages; our estates are 
tripled in value by the rise in rents; the laws govern, 
justice is well administered, and property as secure as in 
any other country on the globe. In short," he concludes, 
" all among us may be happy who have happy disposi- 
tions, — such being necessary to happiness, even in Para- 
dise." What a cheerful old philosopher he was, wasn't he? 

As he was about leaving France, he had written to 
one of his dearest friends in England, David Hartley, 
who was one of the officials of the British government in 
concluding the treaty of peace, " I leave you still in the 



HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OE PENNSYLVANIA. 



207 



field ; but, having finished my day's task, I am going home 
to go to bed. Wish me a good night's rest, as I do 
you a pleasant evening. Adieu ! and believe me, ever 
yours most affectionately, B. Franklin, in his eightieth 
year." 

But you see his 
countrymen would not 
let him '' go to bed." 
They kept him work- 
ing for the public 
good, and you must 
admit that he kept 
very wide awake. It 
was with him much as 
it was with that other 
great American whom 
he so honored- — Wash- 
ington. Neither one 
was to be allowed to 
stop working by their 
admiring countrymen. 

Washington, too, like Franklin, was living at home, 
and trying to straighten things out after the long ab- 
sences and losses of seven years of war. It was at this 
time, in September, 1785, that he wrote to Franklin, wish- 
ing that they could meet once more — they had known 
each other, you know, since the days of Braddock's defeat. 

" It would give me infinite pleasure to see you," wrote 




A GLIMPSE OF THE DOCTOR. 



{Fragment of a portrait of Franklin, painted in 17S6, by Peale. 
It is now in Itidependence Hall, Philadelphia.') 



2o8 HOir HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Washington to Franklin. " At this place I dare not look 
for it ; though to entertain you under my own roof would 
be doubly gratifying. When or whether I shall ever 
have the satisfaction of seeing you at Philadelphia is un- 
certain, as retirement from the public walks of life has 
not been so productive of leisure and ease as might have 
been expected." 

So each of these famous men, you see, after laying 
aside the great work they had done for American inde- 
pendence, one with the sword, the other with the pen, 
found themselves too well known to be allowed to live 
in -quiet. Indeed, Washington's uncertainty as to their 
meeting was to be settled even sooner than he imagined ; 
for they were to sit together in Philadelphia upon what 
was, to a certain extent, the greatest effort and labor of 
their lives. 

Rest, indeed, seemed to be Franklin's chief desire at that 
time — rest, at least, from public duty, though that was 
wdiat he could not get. "In my own house," he wrote 
to a French friend, " in the bosom of my family, my 
daughter and my grandchildren all about me, among my 
old friends or the sons of my friends, who equally respect 
me, and who all speak and understand the same language 
with me, I enjoy here every opportunity for doing good 
and everything else I could wish for except repose; and 
that I may soon expect, either by the cessation of my 
office, which cannot last more than three years, or by 
ceasing to live." 



HO IV HE BECAME PRESIDENT OE PENNSYLVANL4. 2O9 

You see, this old man, who had led such a busy, use- 
ful life, was beginning to feel that he ought to feel old 
simply because he was eighty-two. But, really, he did not 
feel old, except when a spell of gout or of illness brought 
him pain. 

He w^as a great letter-writer, you know ; and in one 
of his letters to an old friend in England we find him 
talking in this way about himself : " You are now seventy- 
eight," he writes, " and I am eighty-two. You tread fast 
upon my heels, but though you have more strength and 
spirit you cannot come up with me till I stop, which 
must now be soon ; for I am grown so old as to have 
buried most of the friends of my youth, and I now often 
hear persons whom I knew as children called 'old Mr. 
such and such-a-one,' to distinguish them from their sons, 
now men grown and in business ; so that after living 
twelve years beyond David's period, I seem to have in- 
truded myself into the company of posterity when I 
ought to have been abed and asleep. Yet, had I gone 
at seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most 
active years of my life, employed, too, in matters of the 
greatest importance ; but whether I have been doing 
good or mischief is for time to discover. I only know 
that I intended well, and I hope all will end well." 

We all know to-day what time has discovered as to 
what Franklin had been doing. He was one of the bene- 
factors of his race, one of the makers of America. The 



2IO HOW HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

work he did in those twelve years when, as he says, he 
supposes he ought to have been abed and asleep, was 
really one of the most important things ever done for 
America and for mankind. ''The French alliance," says 
one student of history, " was worth more to us than Sara- 
toga, for it gave us Yorktown. It was not Gates's vic- 
tory at Saratoga, as is commonly asserted, but Franklin's 
power and popularity, alike in the parlors and at the court 
of France, that gained us the French alliance." 

So, boys and girls, you never should join in with 
those who say of a man, " Oh, he's too old to do any- 
thing ; he's worn out." See what Franklin did after he 
was seventy; read in the next chapter what he was to do 
after he was eighty-four. And then hunt up that beauti- 
ful poem by Longfellow, " Morituri Salutamus," written 
when he, too, was growing old, which closes in this way: — 

" What then ? Shall we sit idly clown and say 
' The night hath come ; it is no longer day ? '" 
The night hath not yet come ; we are not quite 
Cut off from labor by the falling light ; 
Something remains for us to do or dare; 
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear. 
For age is opportunity no less 
Than youth itself, though in another dress; 
And, as the evening twilight fades away, 
The sky is. filled with stars invisible by day." 

Then, after you have read Longfellow's splendid poem, 
read the next chapter in this true story, and see how 



HO IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 211 

Benjamin Franklin, at eighty-four, did one more deed to 
add a lustre to his glorious name, and to show to others 
the way for the United States of America to raise the 
thirteen stars on the flag of the Union, as he knew it, to 
the forty-five that crowd its blue to-day. 



A\ 



CHAPTER XII. 

HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 

GOOD many people have an idea that when the 
American Revolution ended at Yorktown, the worst 
was over, and that the United States of America 
set up in business at once. 

Perhaps you think so too. But just look into your 
histories, and see how mistaken you are. The American 
Revolution was only the beginning of things. 

Franklin in France was, as you know, kept hard at 
work settling up matters long after Cornwallis surren- 
dered at Yorktown ; and, after he had finished all his 
treaties and his peacemaking, he came back to America 
only to find his land as unsettled and uncertain as it 
was before the revolution began. 

Congress amounted to nothing as a governing body. 
It had lived only to carry the Revolution through. It 



212 HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 

could do nothing about who should run the new govern- 
ment, or how that government should be run. 

There was no real bond of union between the " free 
and independent States;" there was no one to look to 
for direction or guidance ; there were no laws under which 
the people of the new republic could live together in 
peace, unity, security, good fellowship, or harmony. 

Franklin saw this; Washington saw it; Hamilton had 
tried to do something towards real union; all the leading 
men and great minds of the republic knew that something 
must be done at once to make a strong and firm and last- 
ing government for these new United States of America. 

So, in the year 1787, a Federal Convention as it was 
called — that is, a " coming together " of certain selected 
men, or delegates, from all the thirteen States — met in 
Philadelphia to talk over, arrange, decide upon, and estab- 
lish some lasting form of government, fully described in 
a paper which all or the most of them should agree to 
and sign. This paper was called a constitution. 

The two leading men — the two greatest men in all 
America at that day — were sent to this Convention by 
their own States ; George Washington from Virginia, and 
Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania. The Convention 
would not have been complete without them. Indeed, so 
long as they were to attend it, all men felt certain that 
the result would be just, and wise, and good. 

It so proved. But it was only by long and earnest 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 213 



talk, in which many members of the Convention differed 
from one another, and in which many hasty and even angry 
w o r d s were spoken 
about the way things 
should be run ; it was 
only by long considera- 
tion of every point sug- 
gested, and by wise de- 
cisions and careful ac- 
tion ; by some giving 
up what they wished 
for most, and others 
agreeing to what they 
had not thought 
best for the coun 
try, that the 
end at last 
was reached, 
vention of 
and si gned 
ous document : 
Constitution 
"We, the 
States " — you 
tution begins 





THE STAIRWAY, 
INDEPENDENCE HALL. 



IN INDEPENDENCE HALL. 
WHERE THE CONSTITUTION WAS MADE. 

and the Federal Con- 
1787 prepared, adopted, 
that great and glori- 
known to us as the 
of the United States, 
people of the United 
know how the Consti- 
— "in order to form a 



more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote the gen- 



214 



HO IV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 



% 



eral welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitu- 
tion for the United States of America." 

The Constitution adopted by the fathers of the re- 
public, and under which we live in security to-day, has 
done all this for which it was made. How much this 
result was due to the presence in that famous Convention 
of Washington and Franklin we can now see; for we 

know that, with Washington in 
the chair as the president of the 
Convention, directing and gov- 
erning its acts — with Franklin 
on the floor as the wisest man 
in all that wise and notable 
body- — and with the influence 
they both had over the mem- 
bers when outside the place of 
meeting, the Convention, in spite of hitches and disa- 
greements and disputes, went through to success. 

People who write and study the history of America 
vv^ill tell you this to-day. So you should know it to be 
very certain that, without the presence and the help of 
those two great men in the Convention of 1787, and the 
mighty influence of their words of wisdom and of advice, 
that Federal Convention, as one writer declares, " would 
either have made no Constitution at all or made one which 
the States would have rejected." 




THE INKSTAND USED IN SIGNING THE 
CONSTITUTION. 



BOJF HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 215 

This would have been a terrible misfortune. It would 
be as if you should fail in your most important school 
examination ; it would be like a man failing in business 
just as he had set up for himself. There is no telling 
what might have been the result had that Constitution 
not been adopted. So it is well for you, boys and girls, 
to remember as, in your classes, you read or study your 
Constitution of the United States, that it exists to-day as 
your protection, your safeguard, and your charter of lib- 
erty, largely because of those two splendid patriots, George 
Washington and Benjamin Franklin. 

It was in the month of May, 1787, that the Conven- 
tion was to meet in Independence Hall in Philadelphia 
— the home of the great Declaration of Independence. 
One by one the delegates came from their homes, and 
among the earliest arrivals was Washington. 

Amid the welcomes and cheers of watchers all along 
the route he rode from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia. 
Soldiers and high officers rode out to meet him ; and, thus 
escorted, welcomed by crowds of people who thronged the 
streets to greet him, amid the joyous peal of all the bells 
of the city, and the shouts and cheers of the waiting 
throngs, the *' Father of his Country " rode into Philadel- 
phia on the thirteenth of May, 1787. 

And the very first thing he did after he arrived was to 
call upon that grand old man, who also had been hailed 
by his fellow-Americans as "the Father of his Country" 



2l6 HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 

(though in another sense). Washington called to pay his 
respects to Franklin, both as the President of the State 
of Pennsylvania, and as his old friend and fellow-worker in 
the cause of American Independence. You could always 
depend upon George Washington to do just the right 
thing, and to do it gracefully, graciously, and courteously. 
His visit to Franklin was surely just the right thing to do. 

For four months, through the summer of 1787, the 
Convention sat daily, deliberating, discussing, arranging. 
And every day of that session, five hours each day, Frank- 
lin was in attendance, — the oldest member of the Conven- 
tion. He was an old man of nearly eighty-two; but so 
eaeer with interest, so earnest in the w^ork on hand, that 
he forgot his age, and was as young, almost, as Nicholas 
Oilman of New Hampshire, who was the youngest mem- 
ber — a mere boy of thirty-two! "Some people tell me," 
he said, "that I look l^etter; and they suppose the daily 
exercise of going and returning from the State house has 
done me good." 

It did good to others, at any rate; for, more than his 
speeches, Franklin's wise explanations, witty remarks, and 
sensible suggestions, as he talked and argued \\\\\\ his 
fellow-members, led them to see things in a clearer light, 
and to accept what, otherw^ise, they might have fought 



agamst. 



Two or three of the speeches made in the Convention 
by Franklin have been preserved. You know there were 




WASHINGTON VISITS FRANKLIN AT HIS HOME IN PHILADELPHIA, 
"you COULD ALWAYS DEPEND UPON GEORGE WASHINGTON TO DO JUST THE RIGHT THING.'' 



HOW BE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 



219 



no great newspapers in those days ; no busy, wide-awake 
reporters taking down everything a public man said ; no 
phonographs to catch a man's speech, and box it up for 
future ages. So, very few of the speeches made in the 
Convention were written down ; and the only thing we 
know about it is what we read in the notes taken by 
James Madison, who was a member of the Convention, 
and who, years after, you know, became President of the 
United States. 

Franklin, although strong and hearty for so old a man, 
suffered from a trouble that hurt him to stand. He could 
not be on his feet long enough to make a speech; so, 
when he had anything to say, he wrote it down and got 
one of his friends in the Convention to read it for him. 
Mr. Madison copied most of these speeches and resolu- 
tions, and that is how Franklin's work has remained while 
other great speeches of the Constitution-makers have been 
lost. 

These speeches did not always bring about the things 
that Franklin desired ; for there was a great difference of 
opinion in that Convention, and it took more than speeches 
to bring men to think and act in harmony. But they set 
men to thinking; and by their wisdom, their kindness, their 
firmness, and their good sense they prevented some ab- 
surd and some wrong things from being done, and thus 
strengthened the Constitution. 

For two months there was nothing really done. It 



220 HOJV HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 

was all talk, talk, talk. After that came action ; and 
finally the finished Constitution. It was when the strug- 
gle was most bitter — for each State felt that it had just 
as much at stake and should have just as much to say 
as the others — - that Franklin proposed a settlement that 
set things right, and kept them so through all these years. 
This was, that each State should have an equal represen- 
tation and equal voice in the Senate or upper house of 
Congress, while in the lower branch, the House of Repre- 
sentatives, the membership should be made up according 
to population. 

This not only solved the question of representation, 
which was in dispute, it also smoothed down all jealousies 
and, so it is claimed by historical and political students, 
saved the Union, which all desired, but about which all 
could not agree. So, once again you see in his long and 
useful life, did Benjamin Franklin save the country. 

Among the things which Franklin advised was a term 
of seven years for the president of the United States, 
and no second term — a recommendation which many 
people ask for and would like to see to-day. It was 
Franklin who proposed the clause relating to the impeach- 
ment or punishment of a wrongly-acting president; he 
proposed the clause making it necessary for a foreigner 
to live at least four years in the land before he could 
become an American citizen. Indeed, Mr. Bigelow, one 
of the best students of Franklin's life, declares that " it is 




FRANKLIN AND CERTAIN OF HIS PATRIOT ASSOCIATES. 



Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. 
(^The Father of the Declaration.') 

James Madison of Virginia. 
(The Father of tJie Constitution.) 



John Adams of Massachusetts. 
Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. (^^^ F'^^'^'" "/''"' ^''""'''^ ^Z-^"^-^-) 

{The Statesman.) Alexander Hamilton of New York. 

( The Father of the Union.) 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 223 

not too much to say that to Franklin, perhaps more than 
to any other man, the present Constitution of the United 
States owes most of those features which have given it 
durability, and made it the ideal by which all other sys- 
tems of government are tested by Americans." 

That was pretty good work for an old man of eighty- 
one, was it not ? Was I not right when I said, for 
Franklin, the Constitution-maker, that, by his wisdom and 
ability in that Federal Convention of 1787, he saved the 
country for the third time in his life ? 

" With all its faults, sir," he said in his last speech, 
just before the signing of the Constitution, " I agree to 
this Constitution, because I think a general government- 
necessary for us; and there is no form of government 
but may be a blessing to the people, if well administered. 
I believe, further, that this is likely to be well adminis- 
tered for a course of years, and that it can only end in 
despotism, as other forms have done before it, w^hen the 
people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic 
government, being incapable of any other. I doubt, too, 
whether any other convention we can obtain may be able 
to make a better constitution ; for, when you assemble a 
number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wis- 
dom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their 
prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their 
local interests, and their selfish views. From such an as- 
sembly can a perfect production be expected? 



224 BOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 

" It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system 
approaching so near to perfection as it does ; and I think 
it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with con- 
fidence to hear that our councils are confounded like 
those of the builders of Babel, and that our States are 
on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the 
purpose of cutting one another's throats. 

"Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution because I 
expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is 
not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors I 
sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a 
syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were 
born, and here they shall die. 

" Much of the strength and efficiency of any govern- 
ment, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, 
depends on opinion, — on the general opinion of the good- 
ness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and 
integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, for our own 
sakes, as a part of the people, and for the sake of our 
posterity, that we shall act heartily and unanimously in 
recommending this Constitution wherever our influence 
may extend, and that we may turn our future thoughts 
and endeavors to the means of having it well adminis- 
tered. 

" On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish 
that every member of the Convention who may still have 
objections to it, would, with me, on this occasion, doubt 



HOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 225 

a little of his own infallibility, and, to make manifest our 
unanimity, put his name to this instrument." 

That is an easy speech to read and understand, is it 
not? It came, you see, at the close of five months of 
bitter struggle, grave differences, and tedious discussion, 
which had " boiled down " the twenty-three articles of the 
new Constitution, as presented by the Committee, into the 
seven articles that you study to-day ; and while no one 
was really satisfied with everything, they were ready at 
last, with a few exceptions, to do as Franklin requested, 
and " put their names to the instrument." 

If you go to Washington to-day you can see in the 
great granite house of the State Department near to the 
White House, within the doors of a long wooden cabinet 
and framed in five distinct sections, beginning with the 
preamble,- — -"We, the people of the United States," — and 
ending with the signatures, the precious and famous paper 
now familiar to all the world as the Constitution of the 
United States. 

And, on the last of the five sections, — the one given 
to the signatures — the two names that will interest you 
most will be "George Washington, presiding, and Deputy 
from Virginia," and, in the Pennsylvania list, " Benjamin 
Franklin," — a pretty good signature, you will say, as you 
look on it, for an old man of nearly eighty-two. 

As these two mighty men put their names to this 
immortal paper, — a paper which Gladstone, greatest of 



226 BOW HE SAVED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TIME. 

modern Englishmen, declares to be " the most wonderful 
work ever struck of at a given time by the brain and 
purpose of man," — their words were just what you would 
expect from what you know and have read about them. 



h 









,^4LgL^a»n^ 










/.f^i^V*-** 



az-^r^^ f ^ " 









\tk 






CI, 









<=^ 



THE SIGNERS OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
(From tJie original !>t the State Defartment at ]l'ashitigton.) 



Washington was sober and solemn; Franklin was cheer- 
ful and hopeful. Washington, pausing, pen in hand, said 
in his deep, impressive voice, " Should the States reject 
this excellent Constitution, they will probably never sign 
another in peace. The next will be drawn in blood." He 
knew the opposition, you see, that had come from the del- 



HOJV HE SAILED THE COUNTRY THE THIRD TEME. 



227 



egates from some States, and he feared that those States 
would not accept the Constitution. If they did not, and 
there was no agreement, he feared a terrible civil war. 

But Franklin, who always looked on the bright side, 
you know, was more hopeful. After he had signed, he 
stood watching the other members write down their names. 
Then, looking toward the President's chair, in which Wash- 





FRANKLIN AND THE PRESIDENTS CHAIR 



I KNOW IT IS A RISING AND NOT A SETTING SUN." 



ington had sat to direct the business of the Convention, 
and on which was painted a picture of the sun half up, 
he said, " I have often and often, in the course of the 
session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to 
its issue, looked at that sun behind the President with- 
out being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. 
But now at length I have the happiness to know that it 
is a rising, and not a setting, sun." 

The hopeful old philosopher proved himself a prophet. 



228 THE OLD rHlLOSOm ER' S OXJ.Y REGRET. 

did he luU ? F(M- when, after months more of discussion 
and deliberation, the several States of the new republic 
remembered Washington's solemn warning, and tlid not 
reject the Constitution, then, at once, the United States of 
America began to take a place among the nations of the 
earth; and as its glowing light of liberty began to arouse 
and awaken the world to action and progress, it became, 
you see, as Franklin prophesied, a rising sun indeed! 



T 



CHAPTER XITL 

THK OLD rillLOSOPHER's ONLY RLGRLT. 

HE Constitution was adopted. State after State voted 
to accept it, or, as it is termed, " ratified " it ; and it 
became the law of the land. 
Franklin was so deeply interested in the approval thus 
placed by the people upon the work in which he had so 
large a share, and which was really his last official labor 
for his native land, that he did all he could to influence 
the people of the new nation in favor of the Constitu- 
tion, and hailed with delight each report of adoption that 
came to him, noting it down in his diary, and writing 
about it to his friends. 

When the States had adopted the Constitution, there 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S OXLY REGRET. 



22g 



was a great celebration in Philadelphia in honor of the 
event. There was a procession, a banquet, and speeches ; 
and Franklin did his share in making it remembered. In 
the procession all the trades were represented at their 
work ; the printers had a wagon on which was a press, 
and they printed and scattered among the crowd a song 
written by Franklin in honor of the trades. It was not 
much of a song or much of a poem. Franklin himself, 
you know, laughed at his so-called poetry. But it was 
verse; and, as a song, it became as popular as anything a 
real poet could have written. The last verse went in this 
way : — 

" Each tradesman turn out with his tools in his hand, 
To cherish the arts and keep peace in the land ; 
Each 'prentice and journeyman join in my song, 
And let the brisk chorus go bounding along." 

Franklin, now that his work seemed done, had serious 
thoughts of moving into the country, and ending his life 
as a farmer. But the people would not give him up. 
He was elected in 1787 President of Pennsylvania for the 
third time. Even though he thought he would be better 
if he gave up public life altogether, he was still pleased 
to be thus repeatedly honored. " I must own," he wrote 
to his sister in Boston, " that it is no small pleasure to 
me that after such a long trial of me, I should be elected 
a third time by my fellow-citizens, without a dissenting 
voice but my own, to fill the most honorable post in 



230 THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. . 

their power to bestow. This universal and unbounded con- 
fidence of a whole people flatters my vanity much more 
than a peerage could do." 

That was one thing about Benjamin Franklin ! Have 
you noticed it ? He never " made out," as you boys and 
girls say, that he did not like or care for a thing when 
he really did. He thought a great deal of being thus 
selected and re-elected ; it pleased him greatly, and he 
w^as honest enough to say so. Have you noticed that 
one thing in common in all our greatest Americans — 
Washington, Lincoln, Franklin, and Grant — their absolute 
honesty? That is why men trusted in them, believed in 
them, followed them. 

For this office of President of Pennsylvania, which he 
held three times, Franklin would not accept a cent as 
salary. He did not believe in salaries for positions of 
honor, such as governor and president. If he could have 
had his way, you remember, the Constitution which he 
helped to make would have said that the President of the 
United States should receive no salary, but must be satis- 
fied with the honor and his expenses! Think of that! 

So, as the chief ruler of the State of Pennsylvania, 
Benjamin Franklin *' lived up to his convictions," as the 
saying is, and refused to accept a salary. Washington felt 
that way, too, you know. He would not take a cent of 
salary for all his long and hard work as general of the 
army of the Revolution. He drew only the actual ex- 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 23 1 

penses of his office. And the only thing that Franklin 
would take was the money he had paid out for postage 
while President of Pennsylvania, — not quite four hundred 
dollars for three years' business ! 

The years that followed his labors on the Constitu- 
tion were peaceful and quiet, disturbed only by the pain 
of his one complaint, which grew worse as he grew older. 
He kept up his interest in all public affairs ; and though 
he took no actual part, he kept on writing letters and 
pamphlets with just as much fun and force in them as 
when he had begun writing for his brother's paper in 
Boston, nearly seventy years before. 

And how he did love Boston ! It was his boyhood's 
home ; and as he grew older and unable to travel, he de- 
sired all the more to see it. 

" It would certainly be a very great pleasure to me," 
he wrote in 1788 to a Boston man who begged him 
once more to visit the old town, " if I could once again 
visit my native town, and walk over the ground I used 
to frequent when a boy, and where I enjoyed many of 
the innocent pleasures of youth which would be brought 
to my remembrance, and where I might find some of my 
old acquaintances to converse with. But if I arrived in 
Boston I should see but little of it, as I could neither 
bear walking nor riding in a carriage over its pebbled 
streets ; and, above all, I should find very few indeed of 
my old friends living, it being now sixty-five years since 



2^2 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S OXLY REGRET. 



I left it to settle here. It seems probable that I shall 
hardly again visit that beloved place." 




PHOTOGRAPHED BV 
BALDWIN COOLIDGE 



THE STATUE OF FRANKLIN IN HIS NATIVU (IT v. 
(Greenough\ bronze statue of Beitjamiii Franklin in /ront of the Boston City Hall.) 

How much he loved his boyhood's home he proved in 
his will, which he made about this time. For "because," 
as he said in that will, ''I was born in Boston, and owe 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 



233 



my first instruction in literature to the free grammar- 
schools established there," he left one hundred pounds 
sterling (about five hundred dollars) to be put at interest 
for silver medals to be given as " honorary rewards " to 
the scholars of Boston, — rewards which thousands of 
Boston schoolboys have since been proud to accept and 
wear and prize as " the Franklin medal." He also left a 
sum of money, at interest and not to be touched for a 
hundred years, for the benefit of Boston workmen, which 
has now grown to great proportions as the well-known 
" Franklin fund." 

He kept up his interest, too, in all the political ques- 
tions of the day, and was greatly anxious for Washing- 
ton's election as president of the United States. " He is 
the man that all our eyes are fixed on," he said ; " and 
what little influence I may have is all devoted to him." 

It is well for us to recall now the love and affection 
that existed between those two great Americans — Wash- 
ington and Franklin. I have shown you something of 
this already. In these closing days this was repeatedly 
shown. 

We find among his letters one written in 1789 by 
Franklin to Washington, congratulating him on his re- 
covery from a serious illness. In that letter Franklin 
said, " I am now finishing my eighty-fourth year, and, 
probably, with it my career in this life ; but whatever 
state of existence I am placed in hereafter, if I retain 



234 ^^^ ^^^ FHJLOSOPHER'S ONLY Ji.2 1 "^ET. 

any memory of what has passed here, I shall with it re 
tain the esteem, respect, and affection with which I have 
long been, my dear friend, yours most sincerely, B. 
Franklin." 

And Washington, in his reply to this loving letter, 
closed by saying, "If to be venerated for benevolence, i( 
to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism^ 
if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human 
mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know 
that you have not lived in vain. And I flatter myself 
that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occur- 
rences of your life to be assured that, so long as I retain 
my memory, you will be recollected with respect, venera- 
tion, and affection by your sincere friend, G. Washington." 

These were pleasant words to pass between two such 
world-famous and noble men, were they not ? 

So, whether in bed or out, in pain or not, Franklin 
continued the same affectionate, jolly, kind-hearted, cheer- 
ful, hopeful, and helpful man as ever. 

He dearly loved his home in Philadelphia ; he dearly 
loved his grandchildren. He liked to have them about 
him as he sat drinking tea and talking with his visitors 
or his friends as he sat under the h'w mulberrv-tree in 
his garden, of which he was especially fond. He loved 
to have them in his sick-room, even when he was in the 
greatest pain. When I was a boy, about your age, there 
still lived in Philadelphia an old lady who was one of 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 



235 



Franklin's grandchil- 
dren, and who could 
remember him. She 
loved to tell how in- 
terested her grand- 
father was in having 
her get her lessons 
well, and how every 
night,, after tea, she 
would go into his 
sick-room and would 
stand at his bedside, 
while he would take 
her spelling-book, and 
hear her say her les- 
son. 

But, sick or well, 
it was not possible 
for this busy old 
man to really rest. 
He simply could not 
keep still or stay idle. 
He wTote almost to 
the last day of his 
life. He wrote to his 
friends in America, in 
France, and in Eng- 




^K' 



FRANKLIN AND HIS GRAND-DAUGHTER — "SHE WOULD STAND 
AT HIS BEDSIDE, AND RECITE HER SPELLING LESSON." 



236 THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S^ ONLY REGRET. 

land. He kept up to the times on whatever was new or 
interesting, and his only regret, as he came to the end 
of his life was, as he wrote to one of his friends, that 
he had been born so soon ; for as he looked into the 
future, and saw all the mighty things which he felt cer- 
tain would come to pass, he said, '' I have sometimes al- 
most wished it had been my destiny to be born two or 
three centuries hence. For invention and improvement 
are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The present 
progress is rapid. Many of great importance, now un- 
thought of, will before that period be produced ; and then 
I might not only enjoy their advantages, but have my 
curiosity gratified in knowing what they are to be." 

Was he not a wonderful old man? Yi^ felt the things 
that were coming. Suppose he could now come to earth 
and realize them,- — the telegraph, the telephone, the ocean 
cable, electric lights, trolley cars, and great, free, prosper- 
ous, independent America ! 

But think how much he had done in his long and 
busy life. I have given up the most of his story to tell- 
ing you what he did for the freedom and glory of his 
native land ; how, three times, he saved it from destruc- 
tion, defeat, and anarchy ; and how he gave his life for 
over sixty years to its service. 

But just read this other catalogue of what he did for 
the comfort, convenience, and bettering of all mankind. It 
is a lono- list — -no other man ever did so many things. 




FRANKLINS RECEPTION-ROOM — "UNDER THE BIG MULBERRY-TREE IN HIS GARDEN, 

HE WAS ESPECIALLY FOND." 



OF WHICH 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 



239 



He improved the printing-press, and introduced stereo- 
typing and manifold letter-writers; he cured chimneys of 
smoking ; bettered the shape and rig of ships ; studied out 
the Gulf Stream, and told sailors how to use it and how 
to keep provisions fresh at sea. He improved soup- 
plates for men and drinking-troughs for beasts ; he drained 
swamp-lands, and made them fertile and fruitful; he im- 
proved fire-places, arranged better ventilation, and invented 
stoves ; he showed how to heat public buildings, and in- 
vented automatic fans to cool hot rooms and keep off 
flies ; he made double spectacles for near- and far-sighted 
people; he invented a musical instrument, and improved 
an electrical machine ; he taught men that lightning was 
electricity, relieved it of its terrors, and harnessed it to 
do the will of man ; he invented lightning-rods, and was 
the first advocate of electrocution — that is, killing men 
and animals by electricity and without pain ; he thought 
out phonography and shorthand ; he started the first spell- 
ing reform ; he improved carriage-wheels, windmills, and 
water-wheels ; he revolutionized the covering of house- 
roofs ; he showed how oil on water would calm a storm; 
suggested the discovery of the north pole and a north- 
west passage; tested the pain-killing effects of ether; im- 
proved lamps and street-lighting, and showed how heat 
could be used practically; he developed salt-mines; he in- 
vented sidewalks and crossing-stones, — at least for Phila- 
delphia, — and showed how streets could be swept and kept 



240 THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 

clean ; he founded the first philosophical society in Amer- 
ica, laid the basis for the present post-office department, 
and first told about the poison in the air — what we now 
call microbes or germs ; he founded the first improve- 
ment club in America, the first free school outside of 
New England, the first public library, the first fire com- 
pany, the first police service, the first periodical maga- 
zine, and the first volunteer militia in Pennsylvania; he 
introduced the idea of humanity in war and the decent 
treatment of prisoners; he protected the Indians, founded 
the first anti-slavery society, and introduced into America 
from Europe seeds, vines, and vegetables new to the 
western world. 

Is that enough ? I think I could add even to that 
list, if I tried ; but it will show you what a man Frank- 
lin was, and how many of the things that you enjoy to- 
day, and which the world could not possibly do without, 
were either thought out or wrought out by Benjamin 
Franklin, that most remarkable of Americans. 

Do you wonder that the world holds him in such 
admiration, — that even from his enemies came praise? 
Lord Brougham, one of the ablest of Englishmen, said, 
sixty years ago, "one of the most remarkable men — cer- 
tainly of our times as a politician, or of any age as a 
philosopher — was Franklin, who also stands alone in com- 
bining together these two characters, the greatest that 
man can sustain ; and in this, that having borne the first 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 



241 



part in enlarging science by one of the greatest discov- 
eries ever made, he bore the second part in founding one 
of the greatest empires in the world." 

But I have told you how he kept on writing almost 
to the last day of his life. And the very last letter he 
wrote, only a week or so before his death, was to Thomas 
Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, re- 
calling certain facts about the eastern boundary of Maine, 
that showed how clear and strong were mind and memory. 

During those last years of life, too, he added largely 
to his story of his own life, called his " autobiography." 
He had begun the story many years before, in 1771. He 
added to it, now and then, as he found time, and in 1788, 
extending it further, brought it down to the time he was 
fifty years old. This, you see, leaves out more than forty 
years of his busy life. It tells us nothing of his labors 
in behalf of American Independence. But it gives a pic- 
ture of the greatest American worker of his time, when 
he was struggling toward the goal of fame and fortune. 

It is considered; to-day, one of the best examples of 
American literature, one of the best autobiographies 
the world has ever seen, and to be classed, so one critic 
declares, with Robinson Crusoe, as "one of the few ever- 
lasting books in the English language." You see, what- 
ever Franklin did he did well, whether it were sweeping 
streets, making treaties, or writing books. 

By all means, boys and girls, get Franklin's autobiog- 



242 THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 

raphy from the library, and read it. It is simple, delight- 
ful, interesting, healthy — in fact, just exactly what Frank- 
lin was himself. 

One of the very last, and one of the very best labors 
of his long life, was his earnest effort in behalf of the 
abolition of negro slavery. He was so true and strong 
a lover of liberty that he could not bear to think of any 
one being held in bondage in a land whose very Decla- 
ration of Independence was founded on the truth held 
" to be self-evident : that all men are created equal ; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalien- 
able rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." 

So Franklin had been, all his life, an "Abolitionist;" 
and when, after the Revolution, men began to discuss 
and talk about the abolition of negro slavery, he was an 
interested and earnest supporter of the measure. It took 
seventy-five years to bring it about, and remove from the 
fair name of the great republic the blot of slavery. But 
it is well to know and to remember that the fight against 
it began with Benjamin Franklin, the Boston boy, the 
Philadelphia printer, the apostle of freedom. 

In 1788 he was elected the first president of the first 
anti-slavery society in America. It was called "the Penn- 
sylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery 
and the Relief of Free negroes unlawfully held in Bondage," 
— a long name, but its work was to be long and lasting. 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 243 

Franklin wrote and talked much about this subject. Both 
he and Washington were united in dislike of slavery. 
As president of his anti-slavery society, Franklin wrote 
and presented to Congress in February, 1790, when he 
was eighty-four years old, the first petition and remon- 
strance against slavery in America ever made to Congress. 

I repeat, boys and girls : remember this wise and 
good old man — Benjamin Franklin — as the first advo- 
cate of that measure of freedom which it took seventy- 
fiv^e years of talk and four years of bloody civil war to 
bring to the supreme moment, when, with a sweep of the 
pen, the great cause was forever overthrown by the strong 
hand of Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipator. 

Here is a part of Franklin's plea for freedom. It is 
the closing paragraph of his memorial to Congress : — 

" From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally 
the portion and is still the birthright of all men ; and 
influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the princi- 
ples of their institution, your memorialists conceive them- 
selves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to lessen 
the bonds of slavery and promote a general enjoyment 
of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, 
they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the sub- 
ject of slavery ; that you will be pleased to countenance 
the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who, 
alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual 
bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding 



244 '^^^ O^^ PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 

freemen, are groaning in servile subjection ; that you will 
devise means for removing this inconsistency from the 
character of the American people ; that you will promote 
mercy and justice towards the distressed race, and that 
you will step to the very verge of the power vested in 
you for discouraging every species of traffic in the per- 
sons of our fellowmen. Benjamin Franklin, president." 

Now take your " Whittier," and turn to his poem 
" Yorktown," written sixty years after Franklin's memo- 
rial. See how the two great-hearted, slavery-hating men 
had the same thought — that it was unjust and absurd 
for a land of freedom to hold a slave, or for a nation, 
saved for liberty by a revolution, to have liberty but half 
granted. 

So he worked on to the end. And at last the end 
came. His pain increased ; old age could not fight against 
it. The last year of his life was passed almost constantly 
in bed. His loved ones were around him. Friends wrote 
him from all over the world; they called on him, talked 
with him, and made life a pleasure in spite of all his 
pain. But at last the tired nerves could bear the strain 
no longer. With the only regret still with him, — that 
he might have lived a century later so as to "see things," — 
he was at last so tired out that he was ready to go. 

" A dying man can do nothing easy," he said. These 
were his last words ; and at eleven o'clock on the night 
of April seventeenth, 1790, with his eyes fixed upon a 




THE LAST LETTER. 
f^Fratiklin writing- io Jefferson — almost the last act of his life) 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 247 

framed picture of Christ, — "the one," he said, "who came 
into the world to teach men to love one another," — the 
loving, great-hearted, wise old philosopher and patriot 
closed his eyes in the world forever. Benjamin Franklin 
was dead. 

The whole world mourned. England, his enemy, paid 
him the tribute of respect. France and America, both 
of whom he loved and who had revered and honored 
him, clasped hands in mutual sorrow, and by public cere- 
monials and private remembrances did honor to the 
memory of him whom both had so esteemed. 

He had lived exactly eighty-four years, three months, 
and eleven days. He had crowded into his eighty-four 
years of life enough to keep four healthy men busy for 
another eighty-four years. He wrought himself into the 
history of his native land ; and that land will never forget 
him, — "the most interesting, the most uniformly success- 
ful life yet lived by any American," says McMaster the 
historian. And that is strictly true. Read, too, this that 
Mr. McMaster further says of Franklin, " No American," 
he says, " has attained to greatness in so many ways, or has 
made so lasting an impression on his countrymen. His 
face is as well known as the face of Washington; and, 
save that of Washington, is the only one of his time 
that is now instantly recognized by the great mass of 
his countrymen. His maxims are in every man's mouth. 
His name is all over the country, bestowed on counties 



248 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 



and towns, on streets, on societies, on corporations. The 
stove, the lightning-rod, and the kite, the papers on the 
Gulf Stream and on electricity, give him no mean claims to 
be considered a man of science. In diplomacy his name 




THE GRAVE OF FRANKLIN. 
(/« Christ Church Biiryhig-Groujtd, in Philadelphia.') 



is bound up with many of the most famous documents 
in our history. He drew the Albany plan of Union. He 
sent over the Hutchinson Letters. He is the only man 
who wrote his name alike at the foot of the Declaration 
of Independence, at the foot of the Treaty of Alliance^ 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 



249 



at the foot of the Treaty of Peace, and at the foot of the 
Constitution under which we live. Franklin was in truth 
the greatest American then living; nor would it be safe 
to say that our country has, since that day, seen his 
like." 

" I cannot place Franklin second to any other Ameri- 
can," wrote Horace Greeley. Can you, boys and girls, 
who know and have read the lives of all the great men? 
What do you say ? 

To-day, in the burying-ground of old Christ Church, 
in his home city of Philadelphia, where the high brick 
fence has been cut away, at the corner of Arch and 
Fifth Streets, so that all who pass by may see the spot 
from the wide side-walk, you can look down upon the 
plain flat stone slab that marks the grave of Benjamin 
Franklin and his dearly-loved wife: — 

Benjamin ] 

AND ! Franklin. 
Deborah 



This is all it says; but it is eloquent in its very sim- 
plicity — a fitting memorial of the simple great man whose 
bones rest beneath it. Self-taught, self-reared, self-made, 
the candle-maker's son gave light to all the world; the 
street ballad-seller set all men singing of liberty; the run- 
away printer brought the nation to praise and honor him. 



250 



THE OLD PHILOSOPHER'S ONLY REGRET. 



And to you, boys and girls, I have told the story of 
his long, busy, eventful life. May it be to you all an in- 
spiration to endeavor; for, with Benjamin Franklin as an 
example you can never aspire too high, or hold in too 
much esteem the love of liberty, of country, or mankind. 



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